Martin Hannan World Player of the Year list leaves me fuming
Rugby writer and Wednesday columnist
IT was 25 years ago today that David Campese made his final Test appearance for Australia, winning his 101st cap in doing so. The Wallabies defeated Wales 28-19 in a close game at Cardiff, and the great Campo left the arena of Test rugby for ever.
He would play for Australia one more time, a few days later against the Barbarians at Twickenham. It was a fantastic game of open running rugby with Wallaby fullback Matt Burke outstanding, though the highlight was when Campese scored his try. In commentary, Bill McLaren called him “the great man” and our own great man never spoke a truer word.
At the end his colleagues made Campese take a lap of honour and the Twickenham crowd rose as one to give him an emotional standing ovation.
Eight years previously I had been at the Arms Park in Cardiff for the Barbarians fixture that ended the Australian tour during which they beat three of the old Scottish districts, South, North and Midlands, and Edinburgh and then the national side at Murrayfield.
In that game against the Baa-Baas, Campese scored a quite astonishing try late on, one of those trademark mazy runs of his that left his opponents reeling – and the Barbarians that day had a terrific team with the likes of Gavin Hastings alongside Jonathan Davies.
It was such a fabulous try that his own team-mates insisted on applauding him all the way back to his position on the wing, and the Arms Park crowd gave him a thunderous ovation. We all knew we had seen something very special. To paraphrase Bill Connolly, we were in awe, a’ roon.
I remember at the end, some guys came on the pitch with a banner that read: “David Campese walks on water” and with one of our neighbours being a Welsh clergyman, I asked him “isn’t that blasphemous?” and was told “no, boyo, because it’s true”.
Yet I have always remembered what Campo said in the aftermath of his great performance in 1988,
and I checked the quote online to ensure I had recalled it correctly: “There shouldn’t be a man of the match because you have the forwards doing all the hard work getting the ball and we become glamorous by doing the easy things and scoring the tries. Instead, I think we should have been clapping each other.”
I couldn’t have agreed more and in my career covering games at home and abroad, when they asked the press box to nominate their man of the match, I’ll confess I often remembered Campese’s words and favoured forwards over backs.
I am still a trifle uneasy over the player of the match awards, but I recognise they are now part of the modern professional game and I have rarely had reason to disagree with the choices. But now I am seething at the 2021 version of the ultimate extension of these awards, the World Rugby Player of the Year title.
Since its inauguration covering the year 2001, I have only been mystified by the choice of winner on one occasion, when Fabien Galthie was chosen in 2002 ahead of Brian O’Driscoll who never won it.
I have disagreed with the choice of winner now and again, but I was able to understand why the voting panel made their selections.
In the 20 years it has been running under the IRB and now World Rugby, only two Scots – Mike Blair and Greig Laidlaw – have made the short list of nominees – with Southern Hemisphere players dominating the roll of honour and the list of nominees. But then when Richie McCaw, Beauden Barrett and Dan Carter have won eight titles between them, it’s easy to see why. There are a number of awards for men and women, and for 7s as well as the XVs, and why Duhan van der Merwe isn’t nominated for the Breakthrough Player of the Year is beyond me, but it’s the main award for Men’s Player of the Year which has caused a stink.
You can’t blame the media for this row because the selection panel is as follows: Maggie Alphonsi (Eng), Fiona Coghlan (Ire); Thierry Dusautoir (Fra); George Gregan (Aus); McCaw (NZ); O’Driscoll (Ire); Melodie Robinson (NZ); John Smit (RSA); and Clive Woodward (Eng). The four on the short list of nominees are Antoine Dupont (France), Samu Kerevi and Michael Hooper (both Australia), and England lock Maro Itoje. I have no problem with Hooper and Dupont, but Kerevi and Itoje? Kerevi didn’t even play in the autumn internationals, and putting Itoje ahead of Springboks’ captain Siya Kolisi and his colleague Eben Etzebeth, for my money the best forward on the planet, is just nuts.
Now World Rugby will put the quartet to a fan vote to decide the winner, and I sincerely hope the fans choose Dupont or Hooper, but if it’s just about numbers, then England have the most rugby supporters of any playing nation and Itoje should win. And that won’t be fair.
Oh, and in his pomp, Campese would have won it every year.