EXCLUSIVE: Greats lift lid on the only sledge that ever rattled SBW in Bledisloe 'street fight'

Test greats Sonny Bill Williams and Bernard Foley have lifted the lid -and buried the hatchet - on their Bledisloe Cup brouhaha from 2017.

All Blacks centre Williams and Wallabies five-eighth Foley had a running battle throughout the Test in Sydney which was won 54-34 by New Zealand.

The pair were reunited on Stan Sport's Between Two Posts this week to preview Saturday's Bledisloe opener at Accor Stadium.

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Foley recalled he didn't "intentionally" try to provoke Williams but admitted some chat was exchanged at the bottom of a ruck.

"My reflection of the game, we were getting beaten pretty soundly, pretty early," he said.

"So it was just a way to get into the contest and try and rise to the contest, but it was also to try and put them off a little bit.

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"And so we found ourselves having a lot of words for a lot of the game."

Williams described the verbal warfare as "full noise."

"In 2017, we just came off the Lions tour," he explained.

NEW PODCAST! Former foes Bernard Foley and Sonny Bill Williams join Sean Maloney and Morgan Turinui to preview Bledisloe Cup

"So I was the most hated guy in New Zealand rugby and my mate over here (Foley) just decided to throw that in my face."

Williams was sensationally sent off in the second Test loss to the British and Irish Lions in Wellington, given his marching orders for a first half shoulder charge on Anthony Watson.

He became the first player to get sent off in a Lions Test.

"I always tried to play the game with respect, like hard but I always had that respect," Williams said.

"So when my bro (Foley) came at me like that, it just rattled me.

"To be honest, it rattled me. So I started going at him. 'Oh, you're the worst 10 in Australian history.' And it's just back and forth, back and forth and I'm lucky I had my man Crotts (teammate Ryan Crotty) who just brought me back. 'You're in a Test, you're not in a street fight'."

Williams scored a try in the rout while Foley was a perfect 6/6 from the kicking tee.

"There was some sort of scuffle and that's what sort of kicked it off," Foley recalled.

"The interesting thing was we actually ended up walking down the tunnel back into the change room at the same time.

"And so it continued all the way. But the thing was we were playing him again in seven days. And so all week, I was like, 'oh no, I'm on again.' So every day it was like, 'get ready,' you get up for it."

A still fuming Williams said he spent the week between the Sydney and Dunedin Tests thinking about how he was going to "get" Foley.

"And I had one of the worst Tests of my life," Williams recalled.

"Dropped the first three balls... it did rattle me a bit because I played the game hard and tough. But no-one really came at me like that - besides my bro over here, you know what I mean?

"He played really, really well, down in Dunedin too. So if anyone got rattled, it was myself."

The All Blacks won 35-29 thanks to Beauden Barrett's 78th minute try to retain the Bledisloe Cup.

Foley scored a try but missed three conversions which proved decisive.