Alun-Wyn Jones and Greig Laidlaw up for World Rugby Player of the Year
Friday 30 October 2015 13:37, UK
Wales lock Alun-Wyn Jones and Scotland scrum-half Greig Laidlaw are the northern hemisphere's two representatives on the World Rugby Player of the Year award shortlist for 2015.
World Cup finalists New Zealand and Australia each have two players nominated - fly-half Daniel Carter and wing Julian Savea represent the All Blacks while the Wallabies' nominees are back-row colleagues Michael Hooper and David Pocock.
Carter will become only the second player to win the award three times if he repeats his successes of 2005 and 2012, matching New Zealand great Richie McCaw's achievement in 2006, 2009 and 2010.
The fly-half will play his 112th and final Test for the All Blacks in the World Cup final, bringing down the curtain on an illustrious 12-year career which has seen him score a world record 1,579 international points.
Jones joined the club of Test centurions in Wales' World Cup quarter-final exit to South Africa, combining his 94 Welsh caps with six for the British and Irish Lions, while Laidlaw captained Scotland to the same stage as he scored 79 points to become the tournament's leading point-scorer.
The nominees were selected by an independent panel, chaired by Australia's 1999 World Cup-winning captain John Eales.
The panel also included former players Will Greenwood, Gavin Hastings, Raphael Ibanez, Francois Pienaar, Agustín Pichot, Scott Quinnell, Tana Umaga and Paul Wallace as well as journalists Pierre Galy (AFP), Stephen Jones (The Sunday Times), Georgina Robinson (Sydney Morning Herald), Jim Kayes (TV3) and Sergio Stuart (Ole, Argentina) and the 20 participating teams at RWC 2015.
