Some commentators thought Cheslin Kolbe should win the World Player of the Year Award. This is after Ox Nche was not nominated at all.

But in the end, the award rightly went to Pieter-Steph du Toit. It is the second year Du Toit has won the award, having first received it in 2019 after the Springboks won the World Cup in Yokohama, Tokyo.

Not only is Pieter-Steph one of the best blindside flankers in the world, but he also excels every week. It’s hard to think of any games where he was anything less than outstanding, let alone played badly.

➤ Would Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu have won Breakthrough Player of the Year if he hadn’t been injured during critical times of the year? Very possibly, yes, but then also, no. Nobody can complain that the All Blacks’ Wallace Sititi won the award. He was so good it is hard to think of him as anything other than a fully fledged member of the resurgent All Blacks team.

➤ Where World Rugby may have got it wrong was with the Coach of the Year Award.

The lovers of Sevens Rugby, who are often frustrated by the way sevens always seems to be treated as poor relations, are obviously pleased that Jérôme Daret won the award as best coach of the year.

Jérôme who? Daret was the 2024 coach of the French rugby sevens team that won the HSBC tournament and also won gold at the Olympics. Enough reason to give him the top award, to be sure, but there is one factor the judges may have ignored: Antoine Dupont.

➤ As much as rugby is a team sport, it is not unreasonable to claim that France won the tournaments because of Antoine Dupont.

From the day he announced that he was giving up the 15s game to help France win Olympic gold for sevens, it was almost a done deal.

Even the casual sevens spectator would have been amazed at the way Dupont could change an entire game. He often came on as a substitute and always somehow managed to do something that won the game for France.

This is why it is absolutely no surprise that Dupont has added the World Sevens Player of the Year Award to his endless list of achievements.

But it does bring into question the Coach of the Year Award going to Daret. It is worth remembering that the pathetic mismanagement of the South African Sevens no doubt contributed to the sometimes shameful results achieved by the Blitzboks, so Daret must have done something right.

Nick Mallet resigned from the panel last year when South Africa’s Jacques Nienaber did not win Coach of the Year in 2023 (after the Springboks’ World Cup win). Would he have done the same this year?

It is difficult to imagine (and this is not about hero-worshipping) that any other coach came close to doing the job Rassie Erasmus did in 2024.

He should have got the award based on only the effect he has had on rugby around the world. The standard of rugby at the Autumn Nationals was spectacular, and it is not unreasonable to say Erasmus has raised the bar for all teams.

Pictured above: Pieter-Steph du Toit.

Source: Springboks/X