Three Irish heroes in frame for top RBS Six Nations rugby player

Top of the Six Nations table and still the highest-ranked northern hemisphere team in the world, but the debate over whether Ireland boasted the best player over the last two months will drag on a while longer yet, writes Brendan O'Brien.

Voting opened yesterday to find the official RBS Six Nations player of the tournament and all six countries have at least one horse in a race that will end when the voting window closes at midnight tomorrow.

Twelve players in all have been singled out on the back of statisticalinformation gathered whereby each player was awarded or deducted points across different action categories, all of which were weighted in terms of importance. Sounds complicated, but the results spat out by computer yesterday revealed three of the delectable dozen are Irish with Paul O’Connell, Conor Murray and Robbie Henshaw getting the nod.