Five Springbok stars are in the operating for the nation’s most coveted rugby award after being confirmed amongst the nominees on Wednesday for the SA Rugby Player of the Year accolade.
Lukhanyo Am, Eben Etzebeth and Siya Kolisi had been all included in the record for the second 12 months in a row, and they are going to be up in opposition to Kurt-Lee Arendse and Frans Malherbe.
Springbok captain Kolisi is again in the operating after profitable the award final season. Etzebeth has additionally loved an awesome 12 months on the subject, changing into the seventh participant to earn his one hundredth Springbok Test cap, and Am’s affect was essential for the SA workforce earlier than he picked up a season-ending damage in August.
Former Blitzbok star Arendse was chic in his debut season for the Boks, scoring seven tries in as many Tests, whereas Malherbe, who performed in his fiftieth Test this 12 months, was a rock in the pack.
Other classes
Nominees had been additionally unveiled in eight different classes for the annual SA Rugby Awards, with the winners set to be introduced early subsequent 12 months.
The record of finalists for Springbok Women’s Player of the Year options final season’s winner Lusanda Dumke, together with Aseza Hele, Zintle Mpupha, Aphiwe Ngwevu and Nadine Roos.
The subsequent era of nationwide gamers had been nominated in the class for Young Player of the Year, which solely takes into consideration people who’re in the U-23 age group, with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, Jaden Hendrikse, Canan Moodie, Evan Roos and Henco van Wyk getting the nod.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu was nominated in the class for Junior Springbok Player of the Year as properly after he led the SA U-20 workforce to an unbeaten run in the Six Nations U-20 Summer Series in Italy, whereas Suleiman Hartzenberg and Ruan Venter had been additionally included on the record.
Three Blitzboks gamers – Selvyn Davids, Zain Davids and JC Pretorius – are up for the Springbok Sevens Player of the Year award, whereas Pumas stars Sebastiaan de Klerk, Willie Engelbrecht and Devon Williams are in the operating for Currie Cup Premier Division Player of the Year, and Griffons gamers Jaywinn Juries and Duan Pretorius are up in opposition to Jaiden Baron of the Boland Kavaliers for Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year.
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The Springboks, the Stormers and the Pumas are in line for Team of the Year, whereas John Dobson (Stormers), Jacques Nienaber (Springboks) and Jimmy Stonehouse (Pumas) have been nominated for Coach of the Year.
“This list of nominees honour those players who performed brilliantly week in and week out and I would like to congratulate all of them on their achievements in 2022,” mentioned SA Rugby president Mark Alexander.
“All of our national teams enjoyed some form of success and again underlined our status as one of the top rugby nations in the world.”
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