Who’s hot and who’s not: World Rugby award winners, Springboks ‘scrum dominance’ and Tom Curry and Felipe Contepomi beef
Springboks hooker Malcolm Marx and England flanker Tom Curry.
It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the weekend.
THEY’RE ON FIRE!
World Rugby award winners: Saturday was a special day for some of the game’s brightest stars as their excellent form this year was celebrated during an exciting day of Test rugby. The big winner was experienced Springboks hooker Malcolm Marx, who was crowned as the Men’s 15s Player of the Year – a fitting reward after he was also among the nominees in 2018. Marx joins fellow 2025 nominee Pieter-Steph du Toit, as well as Schalk Burger and Bryan Habana as the only South African World Rugby Men’s 15s Player of the Year winners. Meanwhile, behemoth All Blacks lock Fabian Holland was named as the Men’s 15s Breakthrough Player of the Year – the third successive year that a New Zealander wins the aforementioned award after Mark Tele’a and Wallace Sititi also won it in 2023 and 2024 respectively. Meanwhile, Chile lock Santiago Pedrero walked off with the Men’s 15s Try of the Year after he rounded off a superb team effort in his country’s Rugby World Cup 2027 qualifying play-off with Samoa in September.
Springboks scrum: The world champions continued with their outstanding form during the Quilter Nations Series as they ground out a 24-13 victory over Ireland at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday. Although the entire team deserves credit, the Springboks’ scrum dominance paved the way to victory as captain Siya Kolisi and vice-captain Du Toit continually opted to pack down at the set-piece when the referee Matthew Carley awarded penalties to them. The Boks forwards then pummelled their Ireland counterparts in the scrums and that played a big part in securing their first win against Ireland in Dublin since 2012. The result means the Boks have now won all four of their end-of-year Tests, after previous triumphs over Japan, France and Italy and their tour will come to an end when they take on Wales at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff this weekend.
Max Ojomoh: He came into England‘s run-on side as a late replacement for Fraser Dingwall, who was forced to withdraw from their encounter with Argentina on Sunday due to injury. Ojomoh took his opportunity with both hands as he delivered an outstanding attacking performance in England’s 27-23 triumph at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham. The inside centre hit the ground running as he intercepted a wayward pass from Bautista Delguy before crossing for the game’s opening try and he was also involved in setting up tries for Immanuel Feyi-Waboso and Henry Slade. In the 25th minute, Ojomoh delivered a well executed cross-kick which Feyi-Waboso gathered before dotting down and in the 66th minute he offloaded out of the back of his hand to Slade, who crashed over England’s third try. Ojomoh’s efforts were rewarded when he was named as the official player of the match after the game and it looks like a new star has emerged for England.
Tom Rogers: It was a memorable day for the Scarlets flyer as he made history by becoming the first Welsh player to score a hat-trick of tries for his country against the All Blacks. The 26-year-old crossed for his first two tries during the first half and both those scores were relatively easy run-ins where he was in the right place at the right time and just had to dot down after receiving the final pass. It was a different matter for the third five-pointer, however, as he still had plenty of work to do after gathering a pass from Max Llewellyn on the edge of New Zealand’s 22. Rogers did brilliantly, however, and beat Damian McKenzie with quick feet before clinching his historical hat-trick.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey: The France speedster was one of the nominees for that World Rugby Men’s 15s Player of the Year gong which Marx eventually won but judging from his performance in Les Bleus’ 48-33 victory over the Wallabies in Paris on Saturday, Bielle-Biarrey would also have been a worthy winner of that award. The 22-year-old proved a real handful with ball in hand as he scored a brace of tries and set up two more for his team-mates. That means Bielle-Biarrey has now scored 20 Test tries in 22 appearances since making his debut against Scotland in the build-up to the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France.
COLD AS ICE!
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu not being yellow carded: One of the big talking points in the Springboks’ victory over Ireland on Saturday was a challenge from Feinberg-Mngomezulu on Tommy O’Brien early in the match. Judging from television replays, it looked like a no-arms tackle from the world champions’ fly-half but, surprisingly, referee Carley only penalised the young playmaker whereas a yellow card seemed the appropriate punishment for his indiscretion. Carley did dish out six yellow cards in all during the match, with the one issued to James Ryan being upgraded to a 20-minute red later on. And although Carley made the right decision with all of those cards, he made the wrong one with the Feinberg-Mngomezulu foul and the Boks star was lucky not to spend some time in the sin bin.
Georgia: The Lelos suffered a 25-23 loss against Japan at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi on Saturday and that result had drastic consequences for Richard Cockerill’s charges ahead of the upcoming draw for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia. Georgia’s defeat means they drop two places in World Rugby’s official rankings from 11th to 13th position. There are four pool-stage seeding bands for the global showpiece with six countries in each band and because the Lelos have dropped out of the top 12 in the rankings, they miss out on a spot in band two and now occupy a place in band three.
Tom Curry and Felipe Contepomi beef: While the England v Argentina clash was of a very high standard, one cannot ignore what happened after the final whistle when there was an alleged altercation between England replacement back-row Curry and Los Pumas’ head coach. Speaking at the post match press conference, Contepomi accused Curry of shoving him in the tunnel at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham shortly after the end of the encounter. Argentina’s boss was unhappy after his full-back, Juan Cruz Mallia, was forced off the field injured following a late tackle from Curry – for which he was penalised – and Contepomi accused the Red Rose flanker of being a bully saying: “Maybe that’s just in his nature, I don’t know, but those are the guys whom we are rewarding and praising – maybe that’s where we want rugby to go.”
James Ryan: A moment of madness from the Ireland second-rower cost his team dearly in their encounter against the Springboks and after initially receiving his yellow card, for an illegal clearout where his shoulder made direct contact to Marx’s head, he was sent off permanently following a bunker review from foul play review officer Dan Jones. The incident occurred in the 20th minute of the match with Jones ruling that there had been a sufficiently high level of danger and there was no mitigation for Ryan’s action at the ruck. His departure was a massive blow for the men from the Emerald Isle as the Boks soon took control of proceedings and continued to dominate for long periods after that.
Wallabies: Although Joe Schmidt’s troops were competitive for long periods of that encounter with France in Paris, they ran out of steam in the game’s latter stages and eventually suffered another defeat. That meant the Wallabies have suffered a first winless European tour since 1958 and a record 10th defeat in a year. This after they lost their three-Test series 2-1 against the British & Irish Lions in Australia, before also losing four out of six Tests in the Rugby Championship, and apart from their defeat to France, they also lost against England, Italy and Ireland during the Quilter Nations Series. A nightmare tour for Schmidt and his troops.