'Always want to get one up': Niall's shot at history with SBW

Titans star Niall Williams-Guthrie has revealed how she organised a reunion with her New Zealand-based family ahead of Sunday’s NRLW grand final in the hope of matching brother Sonny Bill’s feat of winning a premiership in his first NRL season.

Williams-Guthrie, who switched codes and countries this season, hasn’t seen husband Tama and daughters, Tatum-Lee and Rema-Rae, since the NRLW began but the Titans offered to fly them to Australia after the team made the finals.

However, they were unable to travel until this weekend and will arrive on Saturday in time to watch the 2016 Olympic silver medallist play in the grand final against the Knights at Accor Stadium.

“It’s been two-and-a-half months since I last saw them so it’s going to be a big reunion,” Williams-Guthrie said.

“We organised it last week, when we made the finals. I said to the club ‘I’m struggling a little bit. I miss my kids, I miss my family’, and they said ‘whatever we can do to help you’.

“My daughter was playing in a rugby tournament but it's funny how things work out.

"They reckoned they could come over next weekend so we said, ‘do it, because we might be in the grand final’ and now we all get to experience it together.”

It won’t be their first grand final, though, as a teenage Williams-Guthrie watched Sonny Bill help the Bulldogs to premiership glory in 2004.

She was again in the stands with Tatum-Lee, who had SBW painted on her face, while pregnant with Rema-Rae, when Williams spearheaded Sydney Roosters to victory over Manly in 2013.

With father John and brother John Arthur moving to Sydney after Williams joined the Bulldogs as a 14-year-old, and her maternal grandmother being Australian, Williams-Guthrie has family on both sides of the Tasman.

As she celebrated with them after qualifying for the grand final, the 35-year-old asked if Williams had won a premiership in his rookie season.

“I am always trying to get one up on him but they said, ‘I think so’, and I was like, ‘damn it’,” Williams-Guthrie said.

“I remember coming over to watch Sonny in 2004. I was a young kid, and that was unreal. I remember sitting in the stands watching with all of our family - there was about 50 of us. It was a cool moment for our family.

“Probably my most favourite part about coming to rugby league is that so many of my family have actually lived in Sydney my whole life.

“The only time I'd actually get to see them would be like once a year when I played in the Sydney 7s, so now to see them every game, every weekend, it's kind of weird but it's unreal too, and they're just always there.”

If the Titans upset the Knights on Sunday, Williams and Williams-Guthrie will become the first siblings to win NRL and NRLW premierships, with Canberra’s Jordan Rapana and Brisbane’s Tazmin Gray having both played in a grand final.

Williams-Guthrie said the former dual code superstar turned commentator provided detailed advice for her after each game.  

“I get voice messages from him and the whole debrief after every game,” she said. “He is like ‘right … attack, defence, overall’. The full voice messages are like five minutes long. I'm like, ‘oh my gosh'."

Murphy's perfect pitch

It was only three weeks ago, after the Round 8 defeat of the Eels in Round 8, that Williams-Guthrie finally felt settled in her transition to league.

While her brother grew up playing league and had never played union before making the switch in 2008, Williams-Guthrie has a touch and rugby sevens background.

“After I finished that game, I came off and I was like, ‘man, I feel like a rugby league player. I don't feel like a sevens player trying to play rugby league’,” she said.

“That was probably the first time I gave myself actual credit and was a bit like, ‘I think you played a good game of rugby league, Niall’. I was stoked with how I contributed.”

The persistence of Titans coach Karyn Murphy convinced Williams-Guthrie to make the move and she revealed how the deal had been sealed after she flew from Sydney to the Gold Coast in February for their first face-to-face meeting.

“She sat me down in the media room and she did this whole presentation, and she said everything that she thought that they could do for me, and then what I could bring to the team,” Williams-Guthrie said.

“For someone who doesn't know me from a bar of soap to put that much effort in - she'd done her research, she'd watched me play and knew all of my attributes that I could bring - I just thought that was really special.

“That's the difference some coaches might have, and for me that was massive. After I left there, I told my manager 10 minutes later, ‘I am going to the Titans’. There was no doubt in my mind. I wanted to go to them.”

The kids are alright

The Titans were wooden spooners last season, but they are now within 70 minutes of becoming the first sporting team from the Gold Coast to win a premiership in any code, and Williams-Guthrie has become a key player at right centre.

She said the combination of Murphy’s experience and the energy provided by the Titans teen stars - Chantay Kiria-Ratu, Destiny Mino-Sinipati, Rilee Jorgenson, Sienna Lofipo and Dannii Perese - had helped her thrive in the new code.

“Murph has bought the best out of me in league,” Williams-Guthrie said. “She would say, ‘this is what you're good at and this is how you can bring that into the game - good strong carries, find your front and little things that like’.

“I'll do a strong carry and she will be like ‘you know you don't have to run straight into a player, you can use your footwork’. Running off the ruck, she said ‘you are good at reading the game, but you don’t always have to make the big spot tackle’.

“That gives me the confidence that I can sit back and just choose, but she says ‘if you do go I believe in you and I trust in you’. She pulls me in when I need to but she also lets me go and do my thing, and backs me 100 per cent.”

Despite being almost twice their age, Williams-Guthrie said she was also learning from the likes of Kiria-Ratu, whom she defends next to, and the other teen stars in the Titans line-up.

“I love being around the young girls,” she said. “They just bring so much energy and I always think it must be nice to not have to warm up that much because I have got to do the 40-minute prep.

“It’s refreshing and I'm always learning. Sometimes people talk to me like I’m a seasoned veteran because I’ve played sports for so long but I’m nine or 10 games into my league career.

“They might be 18 and I might be 35, but they've got a lot more games of rugby league under their belt than I do so I'm asking them questions all the time and they're helping me out.

“It's kind of like a 50-50 relationship. ‘You help me out with the rugby league, and I'll help you out with the demeanour, and how you can get through those big moments in games’.

"Every week I build a little bit more confidence that I know what I’m doing.”