Backrower Wallace Sititi has capped off a breakout year in style, being crowned the All Blacks’ best player at the ASB Rugby Awards.
New Zealand's ASB Rugby Awards were held on Thursday night and rewarded the country's best performers of 2024.
The top 50 prospects under 23 years of age currently plying their trade in New Zealand features three capped All Blacks already.
The soon to be 37-year-old finished up finished a four-season stint earlier this year in Japan League One, spending two years with Saitama Wild Knights after joining from Scarlets and then two more campaigns with Black Rams Tokyo.
The soon to be 37-year-old finished up finished a four-season stint earlier this year in Japan League One, spending two years with Saitama Wild Knights after joining from Scarlets and then two more campaigns with Black Rams Tokyo.
England flew out of South Africa last Saturday evening to Heathrow as the rightful champions, the consistency of their potent scrum and manipulative defence helping them to a deserved first title since 2016.
Both teams were soundly beaten in the semi-finals, New Zealand swatted aside 55-31 by French flair while Ireland were depowered 31-20 by a physical England who especially bullied their scrum.
The Baby Blacks had defeated France in a pool match in Stellenbosch 10 days earlier, Rico Simpson kicking an 80th-minute penalty to dramatically win that classic 27-26. However, the exchanges were very different at Cape Town Stadium on Sunday.
It's semi-finals Sunday at the World Rugby U20 Championship and following last Tuesday’s weather-affected schedule, the hope will be that all six matches will be played to an 80-minute conclusion unlike on match day three when there were just four and a half matches completed due to the heavy rain making pitches unplayable.
For a country with a glittering heritage in the tournament, especially in the early years when they won four in a row, seventh place in 2023 wasn’t the desired outcome for Clark Laidlaw’s squad.