RUGBY:DESPITE FINISHING third in the Six Nations behind France and champions England, Ireland move past both nations into fourth place on the IRB rankings list after Saturday's 24-8 victory at the Aviva Stadium.
It represents the only major shift in the rankings, as world champions South Africa sit comfortably in third position, 3.93 points ahead of Ireland, with Australia 5.74 points adrift of Tri-Nations winners New Zealand.
Meanwhile, the public voting for the player of the Six Nations ended at 5pm yesterday, but the nominations system has come in for widespread criticism.
Last Friday the tournament organisers stated in a press release that Italy’s Andrea Masi was on course to win the accolade with 21 per cent of the vote. Masi, it was explained, was closely followed by team-mate Fabio Semenzato and England players Toby Flood and Chris Ashton.
Masi did cross for a try in the historic 22-21 victory over France in round four, and scored his second try of the tournament during Saturday’s defeat to Scotland.
However, a major concern has been the exclusion of consistently excellent Italian captain Sergio Parisse along with anyone who performed well in the last and usually definitive weekend of the championship.
To be nominated a player must have won the man-of-the-match award in one of their team’s first four games. The voting process commenced last week “to give the public time to vote”, explained a Six Nation spokesman yesterday.
The 12-man short-list is Semenzato (Italy), Flood (England), Ashton (England), Masi (Italy), Seán O’Brien (Ireland), Sam Warburton (Wales), Ronan O’Gara (Ireland), Maxime Medard (France), James Haskell (England), James Hook (Wales), Tom Palmer (England) and Thierry Dusautoir (France).
O’Brien was nominated after surprisingly being named man of the match in Rome – widely considered his least effective outing of a fine debut Six Nations campaign and certainly inferior to that day’s performance from opposing number eight Parisse – while O’Gara gets the nod for guiding Ireland to victory at Murrayfield.
“We’ll have a look at it in our post-Six Nations review, but that is the system we have used this year,” explained the Six Nations spokesman when asked about potential flaws in the process.
“Those are the requirements and it can’t be changed until after a review.”
In previous years a panel of “experts” selected the candidates, but that system was also heavily criticised, in Ireland anyway, when Richie McCaw beat Brian O’Driscoll to the IRB world player of the year accolade in 2009.
The overall winner is due to be announced this week, possibly today.
Italy centre Gonzalo Canale has been cited for dangerous tackling in the Six Nations match against Scotland on Saturday. Canale was cited by independent citing commissioner John Byett and his hearing before a disciplinary committee will be held tomorrow. Scotland won the game 21-8 to finish above Italy in the table, although only on points difference.
1 (1) NEW ZEALAND 93.19
2 (2) AUSTRALIA 87.45
3 (3) SOUTH AFRICA 86.44
4 (6) IRELAND 82.51
5 (4) ENGLAND 82.48
6 (5) FRANCE 82.06
7 (7) WALES 79.55
8 (8) ARGENTINA 78.97
9 (9) SCOTLAND 77.35
10 (10) FIJI 74.05
