Candice Warner apologises again – but why can’t she get on with her life?

Candice Warner has been the victim of smear campaign. Now she’s standing up for herself - and her beleaguered husband

Candice Warner. Picture: Alana Landsberry/HarperCollins

Candice Warner made a mistake, and she’s sorry. She has said this before, of course, and not just once, either.

Over and again, she’s apologised for … what was the mortal sin again? Oh yes, smooching Sonny Bill Williams at her local pub when she was 22.

Yes, that really was it. The only reason it became a story was ­because some grub stuck a phone under the door. OK, Williams had a girlfriend at the time, but jeepers, they were both young and drunk and silly and she apologised at the time.

Sonny Bill has been allowed to get on with his life. Shouldn’t Candice be allowed to get on with hers? It was only sixteen years ago. But no, apparently not. As ­recently as November, some cowards decided to make snide ­remarks as she walked by.

Imagine their shock when she turned and said: “Excuse me, what did you say?”

Tails between their legs, they ran away.

Candice shocked herself that day. She hasn’t made a habit of standing up for herself. She’d have been well with in her rights, way back in 2007, to tell people to mind their own business. But shame is the most crippling of all emotions, and her new book, Running Strong (HarperCollins), makes clear how much shame she has internalised.

“Most people won’t say anything to my face, it’s always ­behind my back,” Candice tells The Australian just hours after she ­returned from India, where her husband, cricketer Dave Warner, is playing in the IPL. “You’re never sure how to deal with it, because it’s whispers, and gossip.”

She recalls in her book another occasion when it bubbled to the surface: she was on her way to the Third Test in South Africa in 2018, when her phone pinged.

She looked on the troll-site Twitter and what she saw made her cover her mouth in horror.

Thousands of South Africa fans were uploading pictures of themselves, wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks. They were planning to sit in the stands and sing tawdry songs about her, in an ­effort to buckle her husband at the crease.

She wondered if she should go back to her hotel. But then Dave would be thinking: “Where’s Candice?” and he’d be worried sick. She was carrying her third child at the time. And she would in fact lose that pregnancy. And yet she still feels like the one who has to say sorry.

It was Dave who decided he’d had enough. He snapped in a stairwell. His confrontation with Quinton de Kock was captured on CCTV. A few days later, the ­incident was swamped by “Sandpapergate”. Dave was asked to leave South Africa. He would never again hold a leadership role for Australia.

David Warner had to be restrained by teammates after getting into a heated exchange with South African Quinton de Kock.

“And it’s all my fault,” Candice told herself, as they pushed through a media scrum at Sydney airport. “This is all my fault.”

Reading this, you can’t help but think: but wait a minute. Sandpapergate had absolutely nothing to do with her.

“I know, I know, logically, but when you’re in that mindset …” she says, trailing off.

It makes no sense. It’s actually appalling, what has been done to her. She wept again this weekend, triggered by all the memories, as she set out to promote her book.

She is navigating the book publicity tour alone, having ­returned from India a few hours before we speak, “so I’m grocery shopping and opening mail and trying to get on top of things”.

Dave won’t come home ­between now and the Ashes in June. That said, there is speculation about his future. Ask Candice about it, and you can immediately see how she’s survived. It’s the marriage. Just as Dave leapt to her defence in South Africa, she is today a lioness for him.

“He’s definitely putting his hand up to play,” she says. “He’s in a great form. Look at him in India. And with the Ashes, it’s up to the selectors, of course, but while he still has goals he wants to achieve, I’ll support him. That’s the most important thing I can do, as his wife. As his best friend. Because I love him.” To which you just know he’d say: right backatcha, Candice.