As we arrive in the early days of 2018 Australian Rugby fans are no doubt keen to see the back of 2017 and speaketh of it nevermore.
What with the dire Super Rugby performances, the Force debacle and some mixed Wallaby performances (even the wins) and Aussie rugby fans had a whole lot of yuk to deal with.
But, there were still some enough glimmers of gold (in gold) to perhaps provide us a slither of hope and once again and, for the ninth successive year the fans at Green and Gold Rugby have come together to determine our annual GAGR Wallaby Player of the Year Award.
Before we get into the votes, a little bit about the process.
After every Wallaby test match, over in the forum, our readers provide their old school 3-2-1’s for that game. That is, they declare their top three performing Wallabies with the best getting 3 points, 2nd best getting 2 points and the third best getting 1 point.
At the end of the match (voting usually stops by about the Thursday following a weekend test) we accumulate the votes and come up with the three highest point-getters. They are then assigned the 3-2-1 for that test and kept in a spreadsheet, which accumulates the points across the season.
Then come season end, sometime after the November tests we name our winner of the largest fan-driven player award in Australian Rugby.
Our readers have time and again showed extreme astuteness in their selections with the list of winners undeniably at the top of their class in Australian rugby.
Previous winners have been as follows:
2009 – George Smith
2010 – David Pocock
2011 – Will Genia
2012 – Michael Hooper
2013 – Scott Fardy
2014 – James Slipper
2015 – David Pocock
2016 – Will Genia
Let’s get to this season gone and have a look at who were the standouts each match before unveiling our 9th Green and Gold Rugby Wallaby Player of the Year.
AUSTRALIA V FIJI (MELBOURNE)
(Australia 37 defeated Fiji 14)
3 POINTS – Adam Coleman
2 POINTS – Karmichael Hunt
1 POINT – Israel Folau
AUSTRALIA V SCOTLAND (SYDNEY)
(Scotland 24 defeated Australia 19)
3 POINTS – Michael Hooper
2 POINTS – Adam Coleman
1 POINT – Israel Folau
AUSTRALIA V ITALY (BRISBANE)
(Australia 40 defeated Italy 27)
3 POINTS – Adam Coleman
2 POINTS – Israel Folau
1 POINT – Karmicheal Hunt
