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Johnny Sexton one of 4 nominated for world player of the year
By PA
Ireland pair Johnny Sexton and Josh van der Flier have been nominated for the World Rugby men’s player-of-the-year award, while boss Andy Farrell has been short-listed for coach of the year.
Fly-half Sexton, 37, won the award in 2018 and has had another outstanding year, leading Ireland to the top of the world rankings after their historic series win in New Zealand, plus victory over South Africa earlier this month.
Flanker Van der Flier, 29, has been another dynamic performer for Ireland, scoring four tries in nine Test matches.
Springboks centre Lukhanyo Am and France captain Antoine Dupont, the current world player of the year, are on a four-man shortlist.
Farrell, who masterminded Ireland’s stunning Test series triumph against New Zealand in July, which saw his team rise to world number one, is among four contenders for the coach’s award.
He is joined by England women’s head coach Simon Middleton, New Zealand women’s supremo Wayne Smith and France boss Fabien Galthie.
The Red Roses won 30 successive Tests under Middleton’s direction, although that run ended in a World Cup final defeat against New Zealand on Saturday.
Galthie oversaw France’s first Six Nations Grand Slam since 2010 earlier this year.
Elsewhere, Henry Arundell’s impressive arrival on the international stage with England has seen him nominated for the World Rugby men’s breakthrough player-of-the-year award.
The London Irish back scored a try just six minutes into his Test debut when England faced Australia during their summer tour.
Ireland wing Mack Hansen and hooker Dan Sheehan have also been nominated, together with exciting Italy back Ange Capuozzo.
In the women’s breakthrough category, England prop Maud Muir is among the contenders.
Muir featured in all 13 of England’s games this year, including a late substitute appearance during the World Cup final in Auckland.
The World Rugby awards ceremony takes place in Monaco on Sunday.
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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