There are at least four voters who aren't taking this at all seriously - QUADE COOPER?! No matter what you think of him, he wasn't on long enough to get the vote for best player. Surely not even his nearest and dearest could seriously think he was even in the top 15 performers. If we were talking about worst haircut then he might have a chance.
I picked Giteau as my number 1. Every aspect of his play was top drawer, and his game covered all the skills: kicking, passing, running...just brilliant.
If there was a 2nd and 3rd place they'd got to Burgess and Mortlock.
All the backs had a pretty good game (even Ashley-Cooper, though I'm still not convinced - and I'm worried that in the games against the better teams he will be shown up badly).
The forwards did enough, but were not all over the Baa Baas (imagine what might have been if Elsom was playing for them too). When the team was named I was a little disappointed there weren't more Waratah forwards in there - of the Aussie teams, they were the form pack in the S14. I think Mowen is very unlucky to not be in the squad (especially as Hodgson was in the starting line up). Whatever the case, the forwards will need to do a lot more against the better sides.
I couldn't finish without mentioning George Smith (funnily enough, I watched Smith and Waugh quite closely):
Smith put on two great short passes which led to tries. Although the first one was forward, I won't be complaining if we get away with it against the All Blacks. Those two passes were spot on, and after the first one I was trying to reconcile those stats from the S14 that recorded his passing as less accurate than Waughs - and I think I've worked it out. Smith's short passes are very accurate, but the long passes are (were) not quite so crisp. Waugh almost never attempts long passes. So if we just compared short passing Smith would be ahead (I expect).
There wasn't really anything in the match to alter my overall opinion of both players. Both great, but playing quite different styles. To put it simply, Waugh is more of a scavenger and is in a lot of rucks and mauls. Smith does get involved in scavenging and R & Ms, but not to the same extent - he does a lot more running, passing and (to my immense frustration) kicking (if you've got a single digit on your back and you aren't called Burgess - Please, Please, Please, Please, Please - Do Not Kick the Ball! - and don't do swan dives for tries, or any stupid finger pointing or any generally unbecoming behaviour before, during or after scoring a try).
