Francois Hougaard\u2019s spectacular score in South Africa\u2019s win over New Zealand in the Rugby Championship has been named as the International Rugby Players\u2019 Association (IRPA) Try of the Year 2014.The Springbok scrum-half, who scored the first try of the match in Johannesburg in early October, becomes the third South African to win the award after Jaque Fourie in 2009 and Bryan Habana in 2012.<\/p>\n
Samoa\u2019s Seilala Mapusua, former New Zealand wing Jeff Wilson, Ireland\u2019s Alan Quinlan and Dan Parks of Scotland formed the panel of judges who opted for Hougaard\u2019s effort ahead of the four others shortlisted, namely Jamie Roberts (Wales), Cornal Hendricks (South Africa), Magali Harvey (Canada) and Jonny May (England).<\/p>\n
Hougaard brought the Ellis Park crowd to its feet when, in the 12th minute, he dived under the posts to finish off a move that had begun near South Africa\u2019s own line and involved the entire backline. South Africa went on to win the match 27-25.<\/p>\n
World Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: \u201cI\u2019d like to congratulate Francois Hougaard on winning this award. It was a fantastic try. It started from deep within the Springboks\u2019 own 22. There was wonderful elusive running, lightning passing, rapid recycling, a deft kick ahead, which was expertly gathered and then a well-timed run from Francois finished it off in style. It was a real team effort that demonstrated ambition, enterprise and no little skill against the number one side in the world. In short, it was a try that was truly deserving of this accolade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe competition was very stiff for this award with four other great tries in the running. It was particularly pleasing to see the best try of Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup 2014 being shortlisted. Magali Harvey\u2019s score was a real highlight of that tournament and I\u2019d also like to congratulate Jamie Roberts, Cornal Hendricks and Jonny May for their contributions.\u201d<\/p>\n
IRPA Executive Director Rob Nichol added: \u201cWith so many great international tries during 2014, involving both individual brilliance and collective effort, it is never an easy process to settle on one try. However, when it came down to it, Hougaard\u2019s try stood out for the judges due to the high level of skills involved by different players and, most importantly, the teamwork required to make it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Previous winners:<\/b><\/p>\n
2013 \u2013 Beauden Barrett (New Zealand) \u2013 New Zealand v France
\n2012 \u2013 Bryan Habana (South Africa) \u2013 South Africa v New Zealand
\n2011 \u2013 Radike Samo (Australia) \u2013 Australia v New Zealand
\n2010 \u2013 Chris Ashton (England) \u2013 England v Australia
\n2009 \u2013 Jaque Fourie (South Africa) \u2013 South Africa v British and Irish Lions
\n2008 \u2013 Brian O\u2019Driscoll (Ireland) \u2013 Australia v Ireland<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Francois Hougaard\u2019s spectacular score in South Africa\u2019s win over New Zealand in the Rugby Championship has been named as the International Rugby Players\u2019 Association (IRPA) Try of the Year 2014.The Springbok scrum-half, who scored the first try of the match in Johannesburg in early October, becomes the third South African to win the award after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11116,5032,15566,11377,5749,5743,4710,6773,5750],"class_list":["post-77353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ulster-rugby","tag-11116","tag-award","tag-hougaard","tag-irpa","tag-of","tag-the","tag-try","tag-wins","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77353"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":638129,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77353\/revisions\/638129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}