Player of the Decade

[TRF_heineken]

This voting system is kind of dumb idea for this kind of award. The staunch patriotic fans will vote for the player of their country/region. Which would mean most Saffas would vote for PSDT, and most UK fans would vote for Sexton, the French will vote for Dusutoir, while the NZ fans will be split between any of the All Black players.

Then you will get the guys who'll vote due personal preference.

But what could happen is that if it's solely based on votes, none of the kiwis might get the award.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Correction. Ireland fans will vote for Sexton.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Isn't it just the 10 players who were voted player of the year for the last 10yrs?

It's just a popularity contest based on previous popularity contests

I didn't realise that's how they came up with the shortlist. In That case there are Only two (somewhat) meaningful Ways to look at it
1. Who got world player of the year the most times, and that doesn't require votes
2. Which seasons performance was the best, eg was sexton in 2018 better than psdt in 2019.

trying to decide who was Most consistently good Over the ten years is meaningless from this subset of players

 

[Bada-Bing!]

McCaw it is.





And men's team.



And the Women's.



one for the Irish.

 

[klitarris]

Just have 'last ten years' and do it every year?

I think brodies form slipped only in the last two years. And I've been very critical of him. But that still leaves 7 years of pretty darn awesomeness.

Read for me for most of his career has been criminally overrated. Last year was his best year for the all blacks by far, the four or five previous years were not that good. That included bad errors, defensively and bad passes, at critical times in games causing us to lose. Vermeulen was better last decade.

Mcaw pretty great, but mostly as a captain at the end of his career.

Psdt didn't play enough in the decade.

Carter, nah. What about others who retired at the same time? Nonu and Smith, they were better than Carter last decade.

Sexton, my memory fails me there. I can remember times when he was great and when he was awful but I don't have a sense if what the average looked like. Don't want to base it on a few bad performances just because that is what's in my memory, but nor do I want to assume it was only a few if I can't really remember. My sense is he was reasonably consistent so I think he's close, but not the safe bet

So out of those available, I'll go with retallick.

Actually what about Ben Smith, or Aaron Smith?

Totally agree with all of this, but mostly about Read. Don't get me wrong, he was a great player but I never rated him as highly as others seem to.

Like you, out of all those available I'd go for Brodie, but only hesitantly because of his form in the last couple of years.

Massive honourable mention to Parisse. Carried his team for what seems like decades!

 

[Cruz_del_Sur]

Silly question: are only the performances at the national level taken into account or club/franchise/province, too?

 

[RedruthRFC]

Silly question: are only the performances at the national level taken into account or club/franchise/province, too?

The former I believe.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Silly question: are only the performances at the national level taken into account or club/franchise/province, too?

For player of the decade it turned out it was all of the players of the year making up the nominees then a fan vote for who wins. So no criteria in the vote.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

For player of the decade it turned out it was all of the players of the year making up the nominees then a fan vote for who wins. So no criteria in the vote.

its a bit silly, several played only half of this decade, I would argue Aaron smith has done just as much in THIS decade as most of the kiwis on the list

should have started from scratch rather than just from pervious winners so that people that have been 8/10 for the whole decade have a chance to get past people that were 10/10 but only for one or two years

 

[Lancashire Nick]

If it was 2005-2015 then McCaw wins it by a large margin. So I'm not going to gripe about him winning this award, although I'd have preferred it be someone who played the whole decade.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

I think it's the player who had the most impact for the decade. Winning back to back world cups as captain last decade was the single biggest achievement. Fact he didn't play for 4 of the 10 is outweighed IMO.