World Rugby Awards: Winners and losers, Did Albornoz or Marcus Smith have a bad game this year? I can’t Seem to Recall One
In the bigger picture, we throw the spotlight on some winners and losers following the World Rugby Awards evening in which Pieter-Steph du Toit and Ellie Kildunne were to be crowned the winners.
To all and sundry, the Awards evening is a series of controversial debates, with the selection of Players of the Year and the Dream Teams among the discussions, and this year is no different as fans are engaged in their such discussions.
We dig into the winners and losers of the awards.
Winners
Pieter-Steph du Toit
Frankly, almost every single one of the four Men’s 15s World Rugby Player of the Year nominees has been more than worthy of taking the very great honor of being named the best men’s player in the world, but it very much goes to Pieter-Steph du Toit.
He has been an engine in the Springboks’ machinery over the past year, working tirelessly on both sides of the ball and really showing off his skills in the new attacking structures designed by Tony Brown. He was brilliant during the series against Ireland and carried that through to the Rugby Championship even when he had to move into the second-row for the team’s lock crisis.
The bossy flanker is also fast becoming a big leader in the setup and skippered the team against Wales among other occasions such as during the latter stages of Tests. He now becomes the first player to bag the World Rugby Player of the Year Award more than once from the Springboks after having been joined in that category by the all-time greats of the All Blacks, namely Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, and Beauden Barrett.
Du Toit sinks into history as an all-time great not just of Springboks Green and Gold but of rugby international history too.
Ellie Kildunne
Men’s 15s World Rugby Player of the Year nominees competing against each other turned up to be a fight between rather few names. On the contrary the Women one needed only Ellie Kildunne in it as she has been clearly the favorite even to an extent where it was almost a given for that award to be given to her for best women player.
After scoring an amazing nine tries, England rampaged once again into another Women’s Six Nations Grand Slam before the player went on to dazzle in the Olympic Games with Great Britain in Paris. She then came back blazing in the WXV 1 for the Red Roses as England marched to another championship, with the sensational fullback scoring yet another four tries. So far in 2024, her tally is an astounding 14 in 10 tests, incredible indeed. What a player.
Pieter-Steph du Toit of the Springboks was awarded the title of World Rugby Men’s Player of the Year, with this distinction closely following the previous honors earned by three great All Blacks.
Jérôme Daret
Forex Awards usually surprise and the year 2024 is no different with France Sevens boss Jérôme Daret taking the title of the World Rugby Coach of the Year. For most, France winning Gold in the Olympic Games in Sevens was just but a dream. However, Daret presided over this world’s best era in the sport, bearing only their second series title in Los Angeles last March and went on to claim the HSBC SVNS Championship in Madrid in a most stunning finish.
Still, the ultimate moment for Daret was at home when France conquered Argentina to bring home the Olympic Gold at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Although this is the first time for any sevens coach to win the award, Daret will go home lucky considering there were some pretty impressive nominees in the running- more of that later.
Wallace Sititi
The Men”s Breakthrough 15s Player of the Year award was undeniably a two-horse race with All Blacks powerhouse Wallace Sititi and Springboks 18-year-old newcomer Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu standing head and shoulders above left-over competition in Ireland’s Jamie Osborne and England’s Immanuel Feyi-Waboso.
An unfortunate injury at the early stages of this year’s Rugby Championship severely dented Feinberg-Mngomezulu’s opportunity, and from there Sititi surged ahead as he made his stronghold in the All Blacks starting XV and was unreal from the second Test against the Boks right through to his final outing against Italy.
This is following Nehe Milner-Skudder, Mark Tele’a, Rieko Ioane, and Will Jordan in winning the award and does indeed promise to have quite the long, impressive international career ahead, even with legendary Carter stating, ‘he’s definitely a future All Blacks captain.’
Dream Team
Most of the players, who were left disappointed by missing individual awards, found solace in the fact that the Dream Teams acknowledged their excellence for year 2024.
In simple terms, inclusion in their respective teams means, according to a panel of some of the great players who lived the sport, that these guys were the best at their specific positions in 2024.
It is huge, and underappreciated by many, alum not least by those positions that tend to be ignored, the props.
Damian McKenzie
Now when it comes to Dream Teams, the inclusion of Damian McKenzie stands out of the crowd. The All Blacks had a bumpy 2024, and for the majority of the year, McKenzie was the starting fly-half playing New Zealand’s opening eight Test matches of the year.
He has been laser accurate off the tee but hardly all inspiring and the best men’s fly-half on the planet. His inclusion feels more like one where the panel couldn’t make a strong enough case for someone else and just went for the guy that played the most for one of the top four teams.
It would not be fair to say that McKenzie was very poor from the perspective of All Blacks; he was solid there. However, he certainly did not happen to be the best fly-half of this world in the year 2024 who had hordes of fans and critics beseeching for him to be dropped for most of the year in favor of Barrett.
The Springboks
Last year a lot of Springboks supporters thought that all this was done against them by World Rugby as a result of Eben Etzebeth’s exclusion from the Player of the Year award and Jacques Nienaber being overlooked for Coach of the Year. Even Nick Mallett, a former Boks coach, decided to resign from his part in the panel to choose the Coach of the Year.
Although there may still be those who feel filthy and grieved with Rassie Erasmus still snubbed again this year, the Springboks surely managed to mount at least three players for the Player of the Year Award including the winner and a rising star up for the Breakthrough Player of the Year gong. Then there is the very fact that seven Springboks made the Dream Team of the Year, while those who were unable to become part of the team had their place in the team taken away by players who were more deserving of it on the whole.
Antoine Dupont
The first man to be awarded the men’s combined 15s and 7s player of the year. Antoine Dupont leveraged the absence of the Six Nations in France to seek Olympic gold on home soil, a gamble that required some sacrifice but was well worth it in the end as he helped Les Bleus clinch a significant medal haul at the Olympics and a world series title.
Dupont is a superstar of a player and makes a unique bit of history claiming the personal gong, but one wonders if he was entirely deserving and hotly debated as to whether it was a popularity vote. A real icon of the game, beyond argument a world-class player, Dupont had his shining moment in the sevens format of the game, but was he really the best men’s 7s player in 2024 considering he only played two SVNS tournaments – the first not at all in the Olympic Games?
Losers
Rassie Erasmus
The Mallet was steaming about Nienaber being snubbed last year, and he has every right to be hot again in 2024 after Erasmus was left out for the award he won in 2019.
Milton Haig, Mario Ledesma, Melodie Robinson and Danielle Waterman.
Prior to that, South Africa changed their style of play and showed that they could still bring results even under Erasmus with 50 players being used this year. This year, they also won their first-ever full Rugby Championship tournament since Argentina became full members-the first of such in 2019; 11 wins out of 13 matches were won, with the other two lost by just a point.
Unbeaten over November for the first time since 2013, South Africa also clinched a unique victory in Brisbane and triumphed over their old rivals by winning two back-to-back Test matches in South Africa.
Interestingly enough, this was the first year that Erasmus was considered for the award-having occupied the position of director of rugby for four prior years-before world rugby, for the very first time, did not disclose the nominations for the prize, instead just naming the winner at the event.
Sure, there was going to be the Olympics this year, but to be frank, this was actually the case of Erasmus being robbed together with two other highly deserved candidates who would have fitted the bill much more for the award.
Snubbed coaches
One of those two candidates is England Women’s head coach John Mitchell who went unbeaten with them in 2024, because the Red Roses continued to dominate the women’s game. There is always a target on your back when you are on the top but Mitchell’s England dealt with that pressure magnificently and delivered on their potential with not a slip-up whatsoever as they raced through yet another Six Nations Grand Slam and WXV1 title. His record at 2024 reads 10 Tests, 10 Won. True: Expectation from Red Roses to be exactly this way in 2024, but surely that would not come without fierce opposition along the way, for which they dealt with and then set the standard for women’s rugby.
Meanwhile, the legendary fly-half turned head coach Felipe Contepomi put Los Pumas through the best campaign ever of their Rugby Championship in his first year in charge. Los Pumas battle everyday against realities that other tier one nations do not face-there is very little access to their best players, and almost none-local based players pull on the blue and white hooped jersey.
Still, Contepomi turned them into a real force in 2024 through accolades of knocking Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa for the first time in a single Rugby Championship while they also pushed through this November against Ireland and France right to the limit. The Pumas are known for their lack of discipline, but under Contepomi they were much cleaner throughout the Rugby Championship, thereby moving up two rankings positions in the process.
Eben Etzebeth
Three times but not charm for the most scrollable Springboks player of all time when, as in 2013 and 2023, that Etzebeth would not be getting the award for Men’s 15 World Rugby Player of the Year in 2024. He might not be too put out by it, but after back-to-back Rugby World Cups and British and Irish Lions Series, this remains the one award he hasn’t yet been able to grasp.
Simply put, his teammate Du Toit was more deserving this time around.
Snubbed fly-halves
The discrimination between fly-halves
If McKenzie is a winner then it surely means a loser for the likes of Los Pumas star Tomas Albornoz, English Marcus Smith, Thomas Ramos from France and perhaps even Barrett from the All Blacks.
As has been stated above, this was a very surprising and bewildering choice to include the All Black fly-half in the Men’s 15s Dream Team. It must have been a decision based on number of appearances in the jersey because the aforementioned stars would have all got the nod instead of McKenzie had the selection been made by Planet Rugby.
Albornoz was inspired once Contepomi included him in the starting XV, and he never released the jersey. He produced performances that were really magical, which were comparable to that of his head coach in the fly half position and the marvelous brilliant Juan Martin Hernandez.
The on-field performance of England has been dreadful from July onwards, yet not even that brilliant display from Smith had compared to him at times when he was arguably the best form player in the world. After the departure of Owen Farrell to France at this time, Smith has made the starting jumper his own and has provided clutch moments in the Six Nations and has really shone a constant threat and overall sensational player during July and November.
Ramos never played a match in July but lit it up at fullback at the start of the Six Nations and was subsequently in the number 10 jersey into the history books before secured by the same during the month of November where he left an indelible mark in all his matches. He was brilliant off the tee too and played a huge role in Les Bleus going unbeaten during the Autumn.
There’s even a case for Springboks pivot Handre Pollard who swayed between starting and coming off the bench for Erasmus’ charges, while the likes of Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Manie Libbok and Jordan Hendrikse overwhelmed throughout the year; the Boks, however, never looked more unbeatable than when Pollard wore the Springbok jersey.
Argentina
It is disgustingly unfortunate that just Pablo Matera, one Los Pumas star, made it to the Dream Team after a wonderful year. The back-rower has been spectacular, and he is worthy of beating Sititi to a point on this list, but many more made good cases to be in. Some of them include Mateo Carreras and Albornoz, Julián Montoya, and Marcos Kremer. Then comes the issue of Contepomi, which we have already discussed.
Argentina performed outstandingly on the sevens circuit too and will only celebrate the inclusion of Matías Osadczuk in the sevens dream team, with no nominee for the Player of the Year award.
Props
Yet again here we go again. Never before has a prop been nominated for the Men’s 15s World Rugby Player of the Year Award, and once Du Toit’s name rang out, it was just another reminder of how wonderful it would have been had Ox Nche claimed the gong. He was sensational all year, and perhaps in 2024, that’s when a prop could win the award. Heck, even a nominee for fellow prop Lomax was just as brilliant for New Zealand. Maybe next year will see a change, but until then, #Justice4props.
7s Stalwarts
If Dupont is a winner, then Aaron Grandidier Nkanang and Terry Kennedy certainly have to be losers as the 15s star gets the top award in the men’s sevens game after just a handful of appearances. As mentioned, it has the stale feel of a popularity vote and Dupont looked rather awkward and embarrassed in the photos of the ceremony when collecting the gong. The sevens game isn’t in a marvelous place right now highlighted by the fact that there are no European stops on the series this coming season and a XVs star claiming the top individual honour doesn’t help matters.
