Scrumqueens Awards 2016: Part 1. Team Awards.

We have been making these awards for several years now, and how we do our selection has gradually evolved, so we’ll begin with explanation.

The Scrumqueens Awards start with you. This year on our Twitter and Facebook feeds we asked for nominations for each of the award categories at the end of November, giving everyone about a month to submit their ideas.  We also asked other women’s rugby sites to give the process a mention, and our thanks to those that did.

Based on those nominations we whittle the lists down to a shortlist. This is not entirely based on popularity - we know we have more readers from some countries than others, so any attempt at a “popular vote” would have a significant home countries bias, which we want to avoid. That said, a large number of nominations for the same person or team can influence things a bit – and we similarly would not consider anyone or any team who were not nominated.

Once we have things down to three or four names we tend to agree on most winners, though there are always one or two that result in more detailed discussion.  We do pride ourselves that our awards are open to everyone and do not just go to the big names or teams. While success on the field is obviously important, we also try take into account the resources and support available to teams and coaches. Comments attached to nominations can be important!

And so… to our teams of the year!

Note that for the first time we are giving separate awards for tests and sevens. We don’t think it’s really possible to compare a sevens and test team any more, nor to give credit for both sevens and fifteens performances of a country when the squads achieving these performances are now so often largely or completely different.

Test Team of the Year

Shortlist: Canada, England, New Zealand, Spain.

It’s been an odd year for test rugby. Overshadowed by the Olympic sevens tournament, most tournaments saw test teams shorn of big names, with coaches – either by choice or circumstance – experimenting with different combinations. At times even the results of games seemed almost incidental compared to player development.

As well as our shortlist, mention should also be given to Japan (unbeaten all year), Hong Kong (qualifiers for the World Cup for the first time), and Germany, who returned to test rugby with an impressive win over Switzerland and promise more in 2018.

Canadahad a great summer in both forms of the game, winning the Super Series with big wins over USA, France and England despite having so many top names away preparing for Rio. The Autumn Series, despite loses to England and New Zealand, also demonstrated the remarkable depth of Canadian women’s rugby as – unlike England and New Zealand – none of Canada’s sevens squad took part.

Spaincrowned a great year with a European Championship, World Cup qualification and further confirmation that – despite not being in the Six Nations – they are clearly one of the top six teams in Europe. Their performances were – we think unfairly – overlooked as, particularly in the European Championship, their opponents are not generally seen as strong teams, but a team can only play against the sides put in front of them and the Spanish played extraordinarily well, especially in the final against a good Dutch team. They also held their heads and dug in for two home-and-away wins against Scotland in the qualifier

That said,Englandshowed a remarkable revival winning nine out of twelve tests (they were, as usual, the busiest international team). However, luck was not on their side and it was a year of finishing second. They came a hairs breadth of winning the Six Nations (if bonus points had been in play they would have lifted the title), finished second to Canada in the Super Series after a lack of preparation saw them caught cold on their opening match, and also only missed out on a perfect Autumn series after going down narrowly to New Zealand.

However, in our awards England finish runners-up again to…

New Zealand.The Ferns are back, and looking at least as good as the team that won their last World Cup in 2010. Their Super Series win in 2015 might have been dismissed as being against largely experimental opponents, and their defeat of Australia only to be expected against of a team that had not played together since 2014, but their Autumn Series performance has put them firmly into the favourites spot for the 2017 World Cup. England rattled them a bit in the opening 40 minutes, but that aside it was imperious stuff. When it comes to our awards there could  be no doubt:

NEW ZEALAND: TEST TEAM OF THE YEAR 2016.

Sevens team of the year

Shortlist: Australia, New Zealand, Spain

This was the year of sevens rugby, with the Olympic tournament giving the format (and above all the women’s version) more coverage than it has ever had before with an Olympic tournament that captured the attention of a whole new audience.

Outside of our shortlist mention should be given to Olympic bronze medallists Canada (one of the few teams to beat Australia in 2016) and England, who performed well despite the distraction of having to prepare and play as Great Britain in some events.

New Zealandalmost seemed to have peaked too early in 2015/16, slipping off their place at the top of the podium at just the wrong moment and struggling to get back up. But such are the standards we come to expect from the Ferns – and which they set for themselves –that we overlook the fact that they remain head and shoulders above every other team in the worldexceptone. Silver in Rio was fully deserved, and gold in Dubai lays down a marker about what we are to expect in 2018.

Spaindo not have the resources (in terms of player numbers or money) or rugby traditions of most of their opponents, but when it came down to the crucial games in 2016 they did not blink. The Olympic Qualifier in Dublin was looked on beforehand as a near coronation for Russia, but Spain held their nerve much better than their higher ranked opponents and seized the final place in Rio, where again they performed well achieving their aim of a quarter-final spot, and with it funding for the next four years plus a greater profile at home than ever before.

What Spain achieved with what is available to them might have even won them this award in some years, but in 2016 there was really only one sevens team – or rugby team of any form – and that was…

Australia.Tim Walsh’s team have been on another level to the rest of the world for 18 months or more now.  Deserved Olympic champions this is a team that not only won gold in Rio (and the World Series too) but has helped to transform women’s rugby in Australia. Publicity for next year’s Sydney Sevens features players from the women’s team front and centre – a positive profile that sells tickets. That would have been extraordinary even a year ago, and an impossible dream going much further back. This was probably the easiest award to make.

AUSTRALIA: INTERNATIONAL SEVENS TEAM OF THE YEAR 2016.