Thursday 31 December 2015 09:11, UK
Will Greenwood looks back on 2015 with his own rugby awards, including team of the year and the 'sleeping giant is stirring' award.
Plenty of stand-outs with honourable mentions going to three-peat European Cup winners Toulon, PRO12 champions for the first time Glasgow Warriors, Premiership champions and the domestically-dominant Saracens, and Super Rugby first-time champions the Highlanders.
But who else could my team of the year prize go to but world champions - and back-to-back World Cup winners - New Zealand?
They play a scintillating brand of rugby, with power and panache in equal measure and world XV players all over the park. The All Blacks have reached a standard that few teams in history, if any, have ever reached.
Strong cases for Michael Cheika of Australia, Argentina coach Daniel Hourcade and, with my English hat on, Rob Baxter.
But there is no doubt in my mind the winner has to be Steve Hansen after guiding the All Blacks to back-to-back world crowns. This guy just got decision after decision correct.
From pinning his colours to Daniel Carter when some were calling for alternative 10s, picking Nehe Milner-Skudder at the expense of Waisake Naholo, Charles Piatau, Israel Dagg and Cory Jane, and making that inspired half-time switch taking off Conrad Smith and putting on Sonny Bill Williams in the World Cup final. Steve Hansen barely put a foot wrong in 2015.
My player of the year goes to Richie McCaw, World Cup captain of the all-conquering New Zealand and holder of a world record 148 caps.
This is the guy that out-performed the Wallaby dynamic duo of David Pocock and Michael Hooper on the biggest stage of all. Richie is worth every superlative that comes his way. Have a happy retirement, my friend.
From one great Kiwi to two more, a toast to absent friends, Jonah Lomu and Jerry Collins. Two wonderful men taken too early who will be sorely missed.
I couldn't compile an awards list for 2015 without mentioning the result that sent shockwaves through not just rugby but the whole of sport.
You know the one I mean, the day that Karne Hesketh trotted over and Japan defeated two-time cup winners South Africa.
What a monumental victory! It was a performance of ambition and bravery. Japan kick-started what was a vintage World Cup, without doubt the best ever.
Now for a couple of alternative awards that lit up my 2015. My 'sleeping giant is stirring' award goes to the USA.
Fiji may have taken the World Rugby Sevens series but it was the USA winning the London Sevens and those try-scoring speedsters Carlin Isles and Perry Baker that caught my eye.
With Sevens' inclusion in the Rio Olympics just eight months away, Mike Friday's men's triumph felt like a break-out moment for the sport in the United States.
Finally, my viral video hit and sidestep of the year. Whoever said sport and politics don't mix may well have been on to something. Here is Boris Johnson doing his bit for Japanese trade relations.
Yes, mums and dads, that did really just happen! Boris taking the direct route to the line as he bulldozed 10-year-old Toki Sekiguchi to the ground in a moment that became a social media phenomenon.
