Player of the Year voting process revealed

Players, coaches, media and fans are at the heart of an exciting process to determine the World Rugby Men's and Women's Player of the Year.

This comes following a revamp of the process ahead of the 2017 awards in Monaco.

The World Rugby Awards are the ultimate accolade for excellence in rugby on and off the field from community to elite rugby and, since its launch in 2001, the world’s biggest names and most successful teams have been honoured.

World Rugby currently engages directly with more than 10 million people on social and digital media and is keen that the views of those fans, as well as players, coaches and members of the media, are taken into account. As such, once the nominees for men’s and women’s player of the year awards are selected by the awards panel, voting will be open to fans via @WorldRugby social media platforms using the #WorldRugbyAwards hashtag. Players, coaches and media will also have their say on the nominees before the panel makes the final decision.

To be eligible for the top awards, players must be competing at international level and, this year, the awards panel will have access to World Rugby’s game analysis performance data and a full bank of digital match videos. 

With the panel on a four-year rotation, presiding over the process will be a new group of playing and coaching greats, featuring World Rugby Hall of Fame inductees and former World Rugby player, coach and team of the year winners with 771 caps between them, making the panel perfectly placed to determine what it takes to be the best. 

They are: John Smit, George Gregan, Maggie Alphonsi, Clive Woodward, Brian O’Driscoll, Agustín Pichot, Richie McCaw and Fabien Galthié

The World Rugby Coach and Team of the Year will be selected by the panel with entries open to both men’s and women’s sevens and 15s.