Scrumqueens’ XV Player of the Year
The Scrumqueens XV Player of the Year award is in its fourth season and this year’s winner is winning it for the second time, highlighting just how dominant she is on the international stage.
Published by Alison Donnelly, January 3rd, 2015
4 minute read
With 60 players nominated for this award from around the world you could say it was hotly contested, but our winner was the runaway leader with support and votes from ten different countries overall.
Nominees were fulsome in their praise for this player who has been a lynchpin of her team since she burst onto the international scene as a talented youngster.
Voters cited her try in the World Cup final, the fact that she was the top points scorer overall at the tournament, her “consistently excellent performances” and one nominator said “her try was gender neutral in World Cup - a superb, outstanding player, great attitude, all rounder and a great season.”
The Scrumqueens XV Player of the Year is England’s Emily Scarratt.
There were eyebrows raised when Scarratt was not listed on the shortlist for World Rugby's Player of the Year towards the end of the World Cup - the peculiarity of the voting system's timing seeing her miss out - but it was a mistake.
It would be easy to only look at the World Cup for this award, but it is an award based on the entirety of 2014 and Scarratt was also brilliant in most of England’s game in the Six Nations - not least against Wales where she was player of the match and scored 20 points.
As good as ever in the pool stages of the World Cup, she came into her own in the World Cup semi final and final.
One thing that often differentiates a very good international player and a world class player, is the latter's ability to make things happen when the pressure is at its highest.
Scarratt’s assumption of goal kicking duties this year told us that she could handle that kind of pressure at the highest level, but her performances in those two games in particular told us everything you need to know about what a special talent she is.
England’s compresensive semi-final win over Ireland saw Scarratt at her best, causing Ireland’s strong defence untold trouble and her kicking again excellent. After the game captain Katy Mclean cited her ability as crucial to England’s cause: “Emily allows us to go forward. When we need to punch she can do it and that is maybe something we have developed through the tournament that we haven’t got right at times. We have not punched enough. Ireland have got such a good wedge defence that we knew we had to get into them early doors in that respect and that is what she did for us.”
In the final, England turned to Scarratt again and it was her wonderful try that finally put daylight between the sides.
One of the players handed a fulltime sevens contract at the end of the World Cup, we’ll see a lot more of Scarratt in the years to come.