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France and Ireland dominate World Rugby Menās 15s Dream Team for 2023
By Ned Lester
World Rugby has unveiled the 2023 Menās Dream Team of the Year, an XV stacked with bruising physicality, electric pace and otherworldly skillsets.
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All Blacks No. 8 Ardie Savea was crowned Player of the Year and rightly takes his place in the team after missing out a year ago to Franceās mighty GrĆ©gory Alldritt.
Savea is one of four New Zealanders to feature in the team, while their Rugby World Cup final opponents South Africa claim just one representative.
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The bulk of the XV comes from Ireland and France, with five players apiece. The form of the two recent Six Nations champions has denied Rugby World Cup bronze finalists England and Argentina any place in the dream team, despite colossal campaigns from the likes of Ben Earl and Marcos Kremer.
Just three players have managed to back up their selection in 2022ās dream team in 2023, with Irelandās Tadgh Furlong, Franceās Antoine Dupont and New Zealandās Will Jordan claiming consecutive selections. It is in fact the third straight year that the trio has been selected, an incredible display of consistent excellence at rugbyās highest level.
World Rugby Menās 15s Dream Team of the Year:
1. Cyril Baille (France)
2. Dan Sheehan (Ireland)
3. Tadhg Furlong (Ireland)
4. Eben Etzebeth (South Africa)
5. Scott Barrett (New Zealand)
6. Caelan Doris (Ireland)
7. Charles Ollivon (France)
8. Ardie Savea (New Zealand)
9. Antoine Dupont (France)
10. Richie Moāunga (New Zealand)
11. Will Jordan (New Zealand)
12. Bundee Aki (Ireland)
13. Garry Ringrose (Ireland)
14. Damian Penaud (France)
15. Thomas Ramos (France).
This is ridiculous!ā¦irrespective of the disdain and hatred of the Springboks, to have 1 in the team shows the nonsensical decision to even expose this nonsenseā¦actually embarrassing. From a neutral.
Yesā¦..let's all hail the dream ON teamā¦ā¦.š¤£
1 Bok????
Scott āRed Cardā Barrett š¤
He didnāt get a red card did he? I thought it was 2 yellows at Twickers & a yellow against Los Pumas in the semis.
How many cards did Scott get this year? Is that the standard?
Two yellows at Twickers, the 2nd which was a team one, & a stupid yellow against Los Pumas. So, 3 yellows, unfortunately 2 yellows in same match Twickers equals a technical red (for which he got no punishment from the judiciary, as expected). Standard? Definitely a repeat offender but very disciplined as Crusadersā skipper the past 3 seasons.
Iām a kiwi and fervent supporter of the ABs. I have to say that it doesnāt make sense to me that there is only one spring bok in this team. At the end of the day for good or bad, they played and beat all the top teams.
This dream team was picked with the whole year in mind and not just the WC. With that in mind, Malcolm Marx should be the hooker, P-S du Toit should be in there, and Teleāa should be there at wing (if not Kolbe, who had 1 bad day under the high ball all year).
Agree with all that.
This must be the greatest consulation prize WR can offer for the quarter final loosers and Northern Hemisphere hopefuls. Its a jokeā¦to rate Penaud in front of Kolbe is pathetic to say the least.
Really the bitterness on display by World Rugby and by New Zealanders the past few days has left a sour taste, for all that I hope the Boks come back and hit the books, start to prepare for the next one, weāll keep breaking them until they acknowledge who we are!
Preach brother
Not sure what you are referring to here Rudy.. Not a lot of support for South Africa during the game maybe? South Africa deserved champions but the All Blacks played with 14 men for 60 minutes and crossed the Springbok line twice whereas the Boks couldnāt do it..
Bring on the next. World Cup!!
The forward pack , bar 2 maybe 3 players looks like a world cup development team.
I didnāt watch all the games and when I do I am biased towards SA, but no Ox Nche?
I support the bokke and played hooker when I was younger so thatās my bias
Why not Ox? he effectively plays half a game. Against a weaker pack, his scrummaging vs Kitzy is not that much better. i.e. when RSA packs are dominating, itās hard to argue which part is actually driving the dominance. His incremental value-add may not be needed. OX peaked in the RWC but the impact of the bomb-squad is more diffuse (i.e. not just Ox) so he may not have gotten enough credit.
Why Ox? Loose-head is the more technical of the prop positions and requires āmore skillā. Ox won us the ENG game and his soft hands prevented a critical knock-on in our 22 in the final. His runs are also quality through good/fresh AB forwards - āhard yardsā
The French and Irish prop were anonymous to me until Cyril started scoring tries in the QF. The Irish tight-head is a weird selection in my view
Props weigh in
World Rugby: Should be called The Old Boys club from the North.
wowā¦ 2/3 of these players watched the semis and the finals from home? ā¦ congratulations WR: this is your premier event and you rank those didnāt perform at it above those that did?
Who cares would rather win a World Cup than be in WRs dream team
WR showing again they have no clue about the sport they are governing. 1 South African in a team that should represent the best players in the position. I agree, Iād rather have a number 8 who drops a sitter under pressure at 6 than a world cup winning captain. All but one of those players can play the top 5 teams in the world in a row and come out on top, all the others couldnāt cause they didnāt. Some more spite from WR on the Springboks, they took our World Cup and we took their Web Ellis. This World Cup was ending in no other way. Put that dream team against the World Champs, weāll show them a point and beat them by 1!
the world cup winning captain was a 7 not a 6, the saffers just give their flankers the wrong numbers
PSDT I think over Caelin - that said, a team is more than its individuals so it makes sense that Springboks are champs and FRA, IRL, NZ have the better individuals on the top 15 team
Iād add Marx to that team as well.
ā¦ because in South Africa we donāt have legendary individuals, we have a legendary team
Springboks were crowned Reality Team of the year the night before š
No Steph Du Toit? What nonsense.
Northern Hemisphere can āDreamā on.
I love how South Africaās forwards dominated every team in every game they played yet there is only 1 included.
Good point. Agree. Steph Du Toit at least should be in there.
Opinions are subjective of course but they have shoehorned a player into a position they donāt normally play and that is Doris a N.8 as a blindside flanker.
Participation awards!
You can only laugh at people giving themselves prizes
Looks like the TMO had a hand in this one too.
Sounds more like the dream ON teamā¦ā¦.Northern teams always look better on paper then on grassā¦..
Taken as a seasonal team versus what we saw at RWC, makes it difficult to compute.
That's why they call it the dream team.. Because holding the actual World Cup to their names.. remained just a dream.