Erasmus Honoured At Guinness PRO12 Awards

Rassie Erasmus was one of seven Munster representatives honoured at last night’s Guinness PRO12 Awards which took place at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.  The Director of Rugby was named Coach of the Season while Munster led the way with six representatives in the 2016/17 Dream Team.

Overseeing a table-topping campaign that yielded 19 wins and secured Munster a home semi final against Ospreys on May 20, in accepting his award last night, Erasmus paid tribute to his backroom staff, “It’s an honour, but I think it’s a difficult thing to give to one person.  Every squad has three or four coaches, and I think I do the least amount of coaching, with Felix (Jones), Jacques (Nienaber) and Jerry (Flannery) and the conditioning coaches, everyone there contributes. So I’ll say it’s a coaching team award, that would be the best way to put it.”

Meanwhile, Munster’s impressiveness in the Championship was also reflected with the inclusion of Dave Kilcoyne, John Ryan, Billy Holland, Tyler Bleyendaal, Rory Scannell and Jaco Taute in this season’s Dream Team.

2017 Guinness PRO12 Awards – List of Award winners:

• Specsavers Fair Play Award – Connacht Rugby
• Top Try-Scorer – Steff Evans (Scarlets)
• Rhino Golden Boot – Sam Davies (Ospreys Rugby)
• Young Player of the Season – Joey Carbery (Leinster Rugby)
• Independent.ie Try of the Season – Ruan Pienaar (Ulster Rugby)
• Dream Team Captain – Ken Owens (Scarlets)
• Guinness PRO12 Coach of the Season – Rassie Erasmus (Munster Rugby)
• Guinness Players’ Player of the Season – Charles Piutau (Ulster Rugby)
• Guinness PRO12 Chairman’s Award – Nigel Owens MBE

2016/17 Guinness PRO12 Dream Team
15 Tiernan O’Halloran (Connacht Rugby)
14 Tommy Seymour (Glasgow Warriors)
13 Jaco Taute (Munster Rugby)
12 Rory Scannell (Munster Rugby)
11 Charles Piutau (Ulster Rugby)
10 Tyler Bleyendaal (Munster Rugby)
9 Ruan Pienaar (Ulster Rugby)
8 Jack Conan (Leinster Rugby)
7 James Davies (Scarlets)
6 Dan Leavy (Leinster Rugby)
5 Billy Holland (Munster Rugby)
4 Ben Toolis (Edinburgh Rugby)
3 John Ryan (Munster Rugby)
2 Ken Owens, Captain (Scarlets)
1 Dave Kilcoyne (Munster Rugby)