THREE IRISH players are amongst the five-man shortlist from which this season’s ERC European Player of the Year will be chosen following this weekend’s Heineken Cup and Amlin Challenge Cup finals.
In addition to the Leinster duo of Rob Kearney and Jonathan Sexton, Stephen Ferris has been nominated with his Ulster teammate Ruan Piennar.
Jonny Wilkinson, whose Toulon team play Biarritz in Friday’s Challenge Cup final at the Stoop, is also shortlisted. Kearney and Sexton will be seeking to emulate Seán O’Brien, last season’s inaugural winner of the award.
Kearney has risen to the occasion in the Heineken Cup, his two tries in the quarter-final destruction of Cardiff taking his tally to six in this season’s competition and, a la the Bath pool game, made the break and the try-scoring pass to Cian Healy before the monster drop goal which effectively won the semi-final away to Clermont.
After his last-gasp penalty secured a draw in the opening game away to Montpellier, Sexton was hugely influential in the back-to-back wins over Bath and in addition to his superb running game, has kicked 88 points in his seven starts to date.
Aside from his immense form in the World Cup and the Six Nations, Ferris has been an ever-present in Ulster’s eight-game run to the final. He led the line with his thunderous tackling, picking up two man-of-the-match awards in the pool stages and in the quarter-final win over Munster.
The ice cool Pienaar took over the place-kicking duties half-way through the pool stages to devastating effect, with 67 points in their last four games. He landed 15 in the semi-final when he bestrode the game like no one else.
The five-man panel of judges submitted their respective top five nominations from a 23-man long list after the semi-finals of both tournaments and ERC then cross-referenced and validated these to determine the final short list. The panel will convene this weekend in London to select a winner (and all 44 clubs have also been asked for their nominee from this list). The winner will be announced after this weekend’s European finals.
Wilkinson’s credentials would hinge on Toulon winning Friday’s Challenge Cup final, and this would serve to ensure Stade Francais qualify for next season’s Heineken Cup (a Biarritz win would see them qualify). Despite this, the Stade president and benefactor, Thomas Savare, is to confirm the departure of Michael Cheika today even though the former Leinster coach has one year left on his three-year contract. Stade Francais just missed out on the French championship play-offs to Racing Metro and improved steadily if unspectacularly in Cheika’s two years. But this is a third successive year outside the top six and, were Biarritz to win on Friday, a third year outside the Heineken Cup.
It is widely believed Cheika’s working relationship with assistant/backs coach Christophe Laussucq and one or two of the players, such as Julien Dupuy, was fractious and it would seem the club’s hierarchy have sided with them rather than Cheika.
Well settled with his family in Paris, and as the Australian had another year on his contract, it is unlikely Cheika has any immediate plans.
