Boks awards snub: Is winning Six Nations bigger than World Cup?

It is hard to think that there isn’t an agenda against the Springboks by World Rugby, after they were once again snubbed just a day after they managed the incredible feat of becoming record four-time World Cup champions and just the second team to ever win back-to-back Webb Ellis Cups.

The World Rugby awards were held in Paris on Sunday night to acknowledge the best players and coaches over the past year and despite the Boks’ fantastic achievements and having a number of nominees, they walked away without a single major award.

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Of the major awards, Eben Etzebeth was nominated in the Player-of-the-Year category, Jacques Nienaber in the Coach-of-the-Year category and Manie Libbok in the Breakthrough-Player-of-the-Year category.

Etzebeth can be considered very unlucky, having been nominated twice now, a decade apart, and not being able to pick up the award, while in 2021 he wasn’t even nominated despite having an incredible year.

However, it’s hard to argue that Ardie Savea is not a deserving winner, as he also enjoyed a brilliant year, while this was also his second nomination, and in the end he edged it, while Mark Tele’a getting the breakthrough award ahead of Libbok was also fair.

Coach of year

The Coach-of-the-Year award was, however, a strange one with Irish coach Andy Farrell getting the nod ahead of Nienaber, with World Rugby putting a premium on the Six Nations instead of the World Cup.

In their explanation they added that their long run as the number one team in the world and 16 match unbeaten run helped, but he should only be judged on this year.

Ireland did manage a Six Nations Grand Slam and only lost once in the year, but that loss was their most important game as their dreadful run of never getting past the World Cup quarterfinals continued thanks to the All Blacks.

The Boks only lost two games in the year, one against Ireland in the pool stage which they could have won had they slotted their kicks, but surely their feat of playing every team in the world top six and winning the World Cup should have been more impressive.

The other major snub came with the Team-of-the-Year announcement where the Boks’ only representative was Etzebeth, while five players each from Ireland and France and four players from the All Blacks were selected.

Ox Nche, Malcolm Marx, Frans Malherbe and Pieter-Steph du Toit should arguably have made it, while players like Damian de Allende and Damian Willemse could easily have been considered.