The Black Ferns take NZ's top team award
The Black Ferns have been named New Zealand's team of the year for the first time at the sport's annual award night in Auckland.
The five-time world champions won the Women's Rugby World Cup this year, before ousting the men's sides for World Rugby's Team of the Year award in Monaco earlier this month.
Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore was named the coach of the year, for guiding his side to a World Cup win, losing only one match throughout the year. Black Fern loose forward and national sevens captain Sarah Goss was named women's player of the year
The Crusaders also took home their fair share of the awards, with captain Sam Whitelock picking up the Super Rugby player of the year and the Kelvin R Tremain Memorial player of the year award, while Crusaders rookie centre Jack Goodhue won the Duane Monkley medal for his performances in the Mitre 10 Cup with Northland.
2017 NZ Rugby Awards Winners
Fans' try of the year: Portia Woodman (Black Ferns)
NZRPA Kirk award: DJ Forbes
Charles Monro rugby volunteer of the year: Sid Tatana (Wairarapa Bush)
Referee of the year: Ben O'Keeffe (Wellington)
Age grade player of the year: Asafo Aumua (Wellington)
Mitre 10 Heartland Championship player of the year: Scott Cameron (Horowhenua Kapiti)
Richard Crawshaw Memorial sevens player of the year: DJ Forbes (Counties Manukau)
Black Ferns sevens player of the year: Ruby Tui (Canterbury)
Duane Monkley Medal: Jack Goodhue (Northland)
Fiao'o Fa'amausili Medal: Hazel Tubic (Counties Manukau)
Super Rugby player of the year: Sam Whitelock (Crusaders)
Tom French Memorial M?ori player of the year: Rieko Ioane (Ng?puhi/Te Wh?nau ? Apanui)
Outstanding contribution to New Zealand Rugby: Wayne Smith
Coach of the year: Glenn Moore (Black Ferns)
Women's player of the year: Sarah Goss (Manawat?)
Kelvin R Tremain Memorial player of the year: Sam Whitelock
Team of the Year: Black Ferns
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Semi-professional. A mixture of amateurs and paid players. It's basically NPC for the lower-tier unions.
Go to commentsSA has consistently been protected by WR/IRB officials for the past 3 decades. This same protection and bias was also clearly evident in SR when they competed there and SA were never the top SA rugby nation. They went 9 years without winning it before fleeing.
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