Robbie Henshaw and Dorothy Wall win Player of the Year awards

Two former Munster men also featured at the online ceremony, CJ Stander accepted the Moment of the Year Award and JJ Hanrahan claimed the Men’s Try of the Year Award

Dorothy Wall of Ireland in action during the Rugby World Cup 2022 Europe Qualifying Tournament match between Italy and Ireland at Stadio Sergio Lanfranchi in Parma, Italy. Photo by Roberto Bregani/Sportsfile

Robbie Henshaw and Dorothy Wall were the big winners at the Zurich Irish Rugby Players Awards ceremony, broadcast online on Friday.

Leinster, Ireland, and British & Irish Lions centre Henshaw took the plaudits from his fellow players after being named the Zurich Men’s Players’ Player of the Year 2021, completing a unique double having won Rugby Players Ireland’s Nevin Spence Young Player of the Year award three times in the past.

Wall was a double winner herself, picking up two awards at the virtual event, hosted on YouTube by Barry Murphy and Andrew Trimble and taking place after a postponement from the end of last season owing to Covid-19 concerns.

The Ireland lock took home the Zurich Women’s Players’ Player of the Year and was also named the inaugural Whoop Women’s Young Player of the Year, winning both awards ahead of Béibhinn Parsons, who was named the winner of the MSL Motor Group Women’s Try of the Year Award for her effort against Wales.

Henshaw pipped fellow Lions tourists Tadhg Beirne and Iain Henderson as well as Tom Daly, thanks to a campaign which saw him nominated for the Six Nations Player of the Tournament and start all three Tests for the Lions against the Springboks.

“The 2020-21 campaign will always stand out in my mind because the circumstances under which we played were so unique,” Henshaw said. “I’m hugely honoured to win this award but I think the wider rugby community also deserve great credit for how they kept the show on the road to give players like Tadhg, Tom, Iain, and I the opportunity to go out to play for club and country.” 

For Wall, the honours made up in some part for Ireland’s disappointment at failing to qualify for next year’s World Cup in New Zealand.

“We’ve had a tough year on and off the field but I’ve taken great delight in how the team has performed in recent weeks and great hope in what we stand to achieve as a group in time to come,” Wall said.

“We have great quality in the squad, not least in my fellow nominees Eimear (Considine), Stacey (Flood), and Béibhinn. While we failed to continue in the form that we finished out the 2020-21 season with, the experience of the past few months will only stand to us in the longer term.” 

Gavin Coombes was voted this year’s Nevin Spence Young Player of the Year after a breakthrough 20-21 season with Munster, the 23-year-old back-row claiming the award at the top of a formidable shortlist also including scrum-half Craig Casey, full-back Hugo Keenan, and back-rower Scott Penny.

Lucy Mulhall has been voted as the izest Marketing Irish Women’s 7s Player of the Year 2021 with Olympian Terry Kennedy claiming the AIB Corporate Banking Irish Men’s 7s Player of the Year for a third time.

The Zurich Contribution to Irish Society award was presented to Tommy Bowe in recognition of his unrelenting efforts to support charities and initiatives across Ireland while two former Munster men also featured at the online ceremony, CJ Stander accepted the Druids Glen Moment of the Year Award on behalf of his former Ireland team-mates for their victory over England in the final round of the 2021 Six Nations, the back-rower’s final Test cap before retirement.

JJ Hanrahan, now with Clermont Auvergne, claimed the MSL Motor Group Men’s Try of the Year Award having finished off a slick Munster Rugby attack against Cardiff Blues.