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Josh van der Flier wins European player of the year
By Kim Ekin
Leinster flanker Josh van der Flier rounded off an outstanding European season by being named EPCR European Player of the Year 2022.
Despite his side's agonising last minute loss to La Rochelle, Van Der Flier made 25 tackles in the final.
He becomes the third Leinster player to claim one of the most prized individual accolades in the game following in the footsteps of club legends Sean O’Brien (2011) and Rob Kearney (2012).
The 29-year-old, who impressed in Leinster’s brave losing Heineken Champions Cup final display, was presented with the Anthony Foley Memorial Trophy following the final at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille.
More than 30,000 votes were registered on HeinekenChampionsCup.com, and that poll, combined with the verdict of an expert panel of judges, eventually determined the winner.
Van der Flier edged out his teammates Caelan Doris and James Lowe for the prestigious award, as well as Grégory Alldritt of Stade Rochelais, and Antoine Dupont of Stade Toulousain who were also included in the five-player shortlist.
PAST WINNERS:
2021: Antoine Dupont (Stade Toulousain)
2020: Sam Simmonds (Exeter Chiefs)
2019: Alex Goode (Saracens)
2018:?Leone Nakarawa (Racing 92)
2017:?Owen Farrell (Saracens)
2016:?Maro?Itoje?(Saracens)
2015:?Nick Abendanon (ASM Clermont Auvergne)
2014:?Steffon?Armitage (RC Toulon)
2013:?Jonny Wilkinson (RC Toulon)
2012:?Rob Kearney (Leinster Rugby)
2011:?Sean O’Brien (Leinster Rugby)
2010:?Ronan O’Gara (Munster Rugby – best player of first 15 years of European club rugby)
Judging panel
Erik Bonneval (beIN SPORTS), Bryan Habana (two-time Heineken Champions Cup winner), Lee McKenzie (Channel 4), Alan Quinlan (two-time Heineken Champions Cup winner / Virgin Media), Dimitri Yachvili (EPCR Challenge Cup winner / France Télévisions).
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Latest Comments
That's really stupidly pedantic. Let's say the gods had smiled on us, and we were playing Ireland in Belfast on this trip. Then you'd be happy to accept it as a tour of the UK. But they're not going to Australia, or Peru, or the Philippines, they're going to the UK. If they had a match in Paris it would be fair to call it the "end-of-year European tour". I think your issue has less to do with the definition of the United Kingdom, and is more about what is meant by the word "tour". By your definition of the word, a road trip starting in Marseilles, tootling through the Massif Central and cruising down to pop in at La Rochelle, then heading north to Cherbourg, moving along the coast to imagine what it was like on the beach at Dunkirk, cutting east to Strasbourg and ending in Lyon cannot be called a "tour of France" because there's no visit to St. Tropez, or the Louvre, or Martinique in the Caribbean.
Go to commentsJust thought for a moment you might have gathered some commonsense from a southerner or a NZer and shut up. But no, idiots aren't smart enough to realise they are idiots.
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