Matt Giteau’s maiden John Eales Medal shows Australian rugby’s most prestigious individual award is in need of a revamp.
How can a player who readily admits he’s just produced his “worst” Tri-Nations series form be crowned the Wallabies’ best for the past year?
To a humbled, almost embarrassed, Giteau’s credit he put his hand up to say he was far off his best as Australia endured five losses from their last six Tests against South Africa and the All Blacks.
His Eales Medal was won through the votes of teammates who all give out 3-2-1 scores after each of the 14 Tests dating back 12 months to the start of the 2008 Spring Tour.
As playmaker and goalkicker, Giteau is involved in key action and goalscoring far more than his colleagues and his good work is more easily highlighted.
The same centrality to the ball, and chance to shine in open play, has helped back-rowers dominate the award since its inception in 2002.
Giteau was also assisted through his much better form on last year’s spring tour, included in voting because no one wants to celebrate the past rugby season in mid-December.
But what should count most is performance in the Tri Nations, the major annual focus for the Wallabies and their fans.
Giteau, overlooked for the Wallabies captaincy and now poised to lose his cherished No.10 jersey to Berrick Barnes, said he was even surprised to be nominated in the top five before the award was announced.
And he felt he owed runner-up Nathan Sharpe, 28 points behind, as the veteran lock missed the last three Tests of the year through injury.
The undoubted player of 2009 has been world-class prop Benn Robinson who was a consistently a force to be reckoned with up front, where his great deeds aren’t seen by all his teammates.
One thing that Australian rugby’s gala awards night in Sydney did show was that rugby fans are no mugs as Robinson was a runaway winner of the Australia Choice award, voted online by the public.
But the ARU has no plans to go the way of the AFL (umpires) or NRL (media and former greats) by taking the Eales Medal voting off the players.
The Wallabies have made no bones they justifiably prefer to gain the accolades from their peers and, for Giteau, that was the most significant part of receiving the honour.
“For me this is the number one award because it is voted by the players,” he said on Friday morning.
“To have the respect of the players is all I really seek.”
An idea to ensure there is a more just award winner would be to separate the previous year’s end-of-season tour from the Eales Medal.
The ARU could even strike a new award, say the Andrew Slack Medal in honour of the 1984 Grand Slam-winning Wallabies captain, for the player of the spring tour, and present it on the same awards night.
That way, the John Eales Medal would exclusively be a calendar year individual award.
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