The 24-year-old Du Toit follows in the footsteps of Lood de Jager, who walked away with the award for the 2015 season, on a night when no fewer than eight of the winners were aged 25 or younger. The average age of all the players who won awards, was 22.7 years.
The Springbok and DHL Stormers lock fought off strong challenges for the top award from his middle row partner Eben Etzebeth, and a trio of Boks from the Emirates Lions, Ruan Combrinck, Jaco Kriel and Warren Whiteley.
The Golden Lions however did do exceptionally well at the awards, with a total of five awards heading back to Emirates Airline Park in Johannesburg.
The winners from Johannesburg were Malcolm Marx (Young Player of the Year), Elton Jantjies (Vodacom Super Rugby Player of the Tournament), Jacques Nel (Supersport Try of the Year) and Johan Ackermann (Coach of the Year), while the “Pride of Jozi”, the Emirates Lions, were named Team of the Year after a superb showing in Vodacom Super Rugby.
The prestigious Players’ Player of the Year award, presented by MyPlayers and voted for by the players themselves, went to Jean-Luc du Preez of the Cell C Sharks, who was on Saturday included in the Springbok tour squad for the Barbarians match in London early next month.
The winners in the three categories for national teams were Seabelo Senatla (Steinhoff Springbok Sevens Player of the Year), Curwin Bosch (Junior Springbok Player of the Year) and Marithy Pienaar (Springbok Women Player of the Year). The Outsurance Referee Award went to Rasta Rasivhenge for a second successive year.
The winners in the various competitions were Jantjies, Ox Nche of the Toyota Free State Cheetahs (Currie Cup Premier Division Player of the Year), Masixole Banda of the Border Bulldogs (Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year) and DHL Western Province’s Damian Willemse (Coca-Cola Craven Week Player of the Year).
SA Rugby, for the first time this year, rewarded one of their member unions with a Best Development Award, which went to the Blue Bulls Rugby Union.
“To see so many young players step up and make their mark certainly bodes well for the future and I would like to congratulate all the winners, as well as those who were nominated,” said Mark Alexander, Acting President of SA Rugby.
“Many of the players who won awards this year will thrill us for many years to come and I’m certainly excited to see what the future holds for them and South African rugby in its entirety.
“It was a challenging year for South African rugby in many respects, but there were still a lot of wonderful achievements worth celebrating and all the players who won awards tonight fully deserve to walk away with the spoils.”
