2011 IRB Player of the Year

[mark_s]

Who actually votes for the award? I can remember having difficulties in understanding the winners in previous years as well

 

[qwerty51]

Unfortunately our own John Eales heads the team

The IRB Player of the Year nominees were selected by the IRB Awards independent panel of judges, which is chaired by Australia’s RWC 1999 winning captain John Eales and is made up of former internationals with more than 500 caps and four Rugby World Cup winners’ medals between them.

The IRB Awards panel comprises some of the biggest names in the Game with Will Greenwood, Gavin Hastings, Raphaël Ibanez, Francois Pienaar, Agustín Pichot, Scott Quinnell, Tana Umaga and Paul Wallace having deliberated on every major Test played in 2011, starting with the opening RBS 6 Nations match and culminating with the RWC Final.

In total the panel have watched more than 100 hours of action, awarding points to the three players they thought stood out in each match. In order to recognise the importance of Rugby World Cup matches in determining the Player of the Year, an additional weighting has been applied to matches in the Tournament.

 

[Slim 293]

It's probably no less crooked than any other award out there...

 

[Scotty]

It is always difficult for a player from the best team to win. They have to be even better than the rest of their already brilliant teammates.

In this regard I am surprised that pocock didn't win. He was certainly better than dusuatoir over the world cup. I guess he missed a couple of games though.

 

[Richo]

Kaino probably hamstrung by Nonu having such a great year... and by those inexplicable Piri votes.

 

[tigerland12]

I love Dusatouir, great player and had a good tournment and a brilliant final.....but fucking hell, how does this even work? Kaino, Nonu and Pocock all ahead of him I would of thought.

 

[the plastic paddy]

Always strike me as a bit pointless, all these awards. the game is about who wins in the 80 minutes and that doesn't come down to votes it comes down to one TEAM being better than the other. Like Dusatoir however, not a great showman but fecking hard and can honestly say I have never seen him do anything dirty.

 

[Lee Grant]

I would have picked Nonu or Kaino but Dusautoir was not too far off the money IMO.

I don't know how the panel members pick these things. If they do it 3-2-1 as we do in Gaggerland you could see how the two Kiwis would miss out but if you ranked every player out of 10 for each game it's a bit of a mystery.

 

[Bardon]

Only 4/32 picked him in our poll and as we are all such good judges then the IRB have obviously erred.

I voted for him in the poll simply because the poll says "Player of the Year 2011 will be" rather than should be. I felt the panel would give it to Dusautoir as a consolation to France for their performance in the final. Especially since neither Kaino nor Nonu had stand out performances in the final and Weepu's performance stood out for the wrong reasons.

If the poll had said should be I would have voted Kaino as I watched all the 6N games and France (including Dusautoir) were truely terrible in some of them. Even if you take into account the fact the WC gets a greater weighting surely the Tonga and Wales games would have had Dusautoir well behind Nonu and Kaino.

 

[Lee Grant]

Good post Bardon.

I also watched all the 6N games and also all the RWC games and all the warm up games that the 6N teams played before the RWC. France played poorly against England and France in 6N and, as we all know were not great in in the RWC before the final but they were OK in the other 6N games and their two RWC trial games against Ireland.

But that is beside my point that however well or poorly France played, Dusautoir was a constant of excellence - and Bonnaire was not too far behind him.

 

[AngrySeahorse]

There is more to a players measure than just whether they are in a winning team. It can be about bouncing back from a loss. I have no idea how Dusautoir was able to rally his team or himself to go out & beat England (as poor as England was) after such a humiliating loss to Tonga (all credit to Tonga) let alone put up the fight they did in the final. For mine thats a sign of some really good leadership from Dusautoir. I didnt originally pick Dusautoir for the award but on reflection I think he's a deserved winner.

 

[Gnostic]

I said at the beginning of the year that I rated Dusatoir one of the best backrowers in the World. Having watched most of France's games closely he was always good even though the French have been dire up until their last two games. I am not surprised at all that he got the award.

 

[Hawko]

Feel sad for Kaino though; he was a class above any other 6 in the world this year, absolutely huge for New Zealand. Look at what happened when he wasn't there in Brisbane and when he was there at Eden Park ten days ago. I reckon if Nonu hadn't taken votes off him he was home and hosed despite the form of Dusatoir, SOB, Pocock et al.