New Zealand wing Julian Savea has today been named the IRB Junior Player of the Year 2010, the second of the prestigious IRB Awards in association with Emirates Airline to be presented this year.
Savea was presented with the Award by IRB Vice Chairman Bill Beaumont after helping New Zealand win a third successive IRB Junior World Championship title with a 62-17 defeat of Australia at the Estadio El Coloso del Parque in Rosario, Argentina.
He becomes the third New Zealander in succession to win the coveted award, following in the footsteps of Aaron Cruden in 2009 and Luke Braid in 2008.
Savea beat off stiff competition from his New Zealand captain Tyler Bleyendaal, Australia centre Robbie Coleman and Argentina fly half Ignacio Rodriguez Muedra to receive the honour.
The 19-year-old powerful and athletic wing has scored eight memorable tries in the tournament to equal the record of countryman Zac Guildford set last year in Japan.
Savea has been almost impossible to stop when in full flight, leaving defenders in his wake. Coming to the Junior World Championship with experience of the IRB Sevens World Series, Savea has shown great spatial awareness coupled with speed and strength.
"I feel pretty stoked," said Savea. "Once again just credit to the boys as without them I wouldn't be here. I enjoyed the game tonight, it was great, we got up and played and I think the boys just capitalised on our opportunities more."
Savea is the latest New Zealander to win the IRB Age Grade Award with previous winners Cruden, Isaia Toeava, Jerome Kaino and Luke McAlister all having gone on to play for the All Blacks.
"The IRB Junior World Championship has shown us the future stars of the world game, which looks to be in very good hands," said Beaumont, in Argentina to present the Award.
"The IRB Junior Player of the Year Award is essential in recognising achievement at this level and Julian should feel extremely proud that he has won this award given the very talented players on show here over the past three weeks."
A VNR of Julian Savea receiving his award is available via:
www.78seventy.com
enter and click on the 'Client log-in' tab
username - jwc2010prefinal
password - r0sar10
If the software (Cyberduck, Filezilla etc) used also asks for a 'user' or 'host' - this is: 77.68.57.24
this will take you to the file containing 'JWCPreFinal-H264'
this is a H264 Broadcast quality Quicktime movie (.mov file) which any broadcaster can download and use.
Rights-free photos of Julian Savea receiving the Award and audio reaction from the WINNERS captain and coach are available to download from the Media Centre on the IRB Junior World Championship 2010 website.
For more information contact: Andrea Wiggins at andrea.wiggins@irb.com
As a service to our readers, Around the Rings will provide verbatim texts of selected press releases issued by Olympic-related organizations, federations, businesses and sponsors.
These press releases appear as sent to Around the Rings and are not edited for spelling, grammar or punctuation.
Your complete source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only
Últimas Noticias
Sinner-Alcaraz, the duel that came to succeed the three phenomenons
Table tennis: Brazil’s Bruna Costa Alexandre will be Olympic and Paralympic in Paris 2024
Rugby 7s: the best player of 2023 would only play the medal match in Paris
Rhonex Kipruto, owner of the world record for the 10000 meters on the road, was suspended for six years
Katie Ledecky spoke about doping Chinese swimmers: “It’s difficult to go to Paris knowing that we’re going to compete with some of these athletes”
