Ireland blitz ABs again

Two weeks after beating them on the pitch, Schmidt’s side beat the All Blacks to all the top awards off the pitch

Ireland have chalked up another win over the All Blacks. The Six Nations champions scooped the Team, Coach and Player of the Year categories at the World Rugby awards in Monaco yesterday.

Ireland coach Joe Schmidt, set to announce his post-World Cup future today, took out Coach of the Year and Johnny Sexton was a popular choice as world Men’s Player of the Year, beating All Blacks Beauden Barrett, who won the previous two years, and Rieko Ioane.

Brodie Retallick was the only All Black to appear on the podium, picking up the Try of the Year prize for his superb dummy-and-go long-range effort against the Wallabies in Sydney in August.

Schmidt took the Coach of the Year award for guiding his side to second in the rankings from eighth when he took over in November 2013.

Ireland were also named Team of the Year, having won 11 of 12 tests — including their third Grand Slam — and 18 of their last 19 since March 2017, when they denied England a second successive clean sweep. New Zealand teams had claimed this award the previous eight years.

“It’s been an incredible year for us,” Ireland captain Rory Best said. “The Grand Slam was enormous. I think to win it at Twickenham, which is an unbelievably tough place to go with all the pressure that is around, made the Grand Slam the highlight of the year.”

Best dismissed suggestions that Ireland’s 16-9 win over New Zealand in Dublin two weeks ago had made them favourites to win the World Cup in Japan next year.

“I think favourites and underdogs is a tag that is thrown around in the media more than among the teams,” he said.

“When you get to the top level, and when you look at the World Cup, you see teams like New Zealand, which we were obviously thrilled to beat this month.

“They have been No 1 in the world for nine years now and they are obviously a fantastic outfit.

“They are going to be tough to beat at the World Cup but I think below, there are a number of teams that will say they have a real chance of going to the World Cup and winning it. For Ireland to be in that lucky position is phenomenal.”

France fullback Jessy Tremouliere won Women’s Player of the Year, with Black Ferns great Fiao’o Faamausili among the nominees.

Black Ferns Sevens star Michaela Blyde was among the early winners winning the Women’s Sevens Player award for a second straight year. Blyde scored 37 tries across the five World Series rounds, as well as dotting down nine times in the World Cup win in San Francisco and winning Commonwealth Games gold.

She was nominated alongside Portia Woodman and her captain Sarah Goss in the category for best female sevens player. She dedicated the award to Goss.

All Blacks prop Karl Tu’inukuafe was pipped for Breakthrough Player of the Year by South African wing Aphiwe Dyantyi.

Former men’s sevens skipper DJ Forbes received a Special Merit Award alongside former Wallabies captain Stephen Moore.