SA Rugby have issued a statement following Malcolm Marx\u2019s win in the World Rugby Men\u2019s 15s Player of the Year award.<\/p>\n
Marx became the fourth Springbok to claim the sport\u2019s top individual honour, sealing an unprecedented back-to-back win for the Boks in the award.<\/p>\n
He was also the first front-rower to win since Keith Wood<\/a> won the inaugural award in 2001.<\/p>\n Pieter-Steph du Toit, last year\u2019s recipient and a fellow nominee this time around, had already made history as the first South African to win the award twice.<\/p>\n Marx, 31, now joins Du Toit, Bryan Habana<\/a> (2007) and Schalk Burger<\/a> (2004) on the elite roll of honour.<\/p>\n The hooker\u2019s season has been a clinic in consistency. Dominant at the lineout, destructive at scrum time and inevitably present over the ball, Marx edged a shortlist stacked with South Africans: Du Toit, 2024\u2019s winner; Ox Nche<\/a>, and in the Breakthrough Player of Year category, Ethan Hooker.<\/p>\n \u201cOn behalf of SA Rugby, I extend our heartfelt congratulations to Malcolm,\u201d said Mr Alexander. \u201cHis work ethic is simply unbelievable, and he embodies everything we value in a Springbok \u2013 resilience, commitment and character. This award is a fitting recognition of his contribution to our team and to the sport of rugby.\u201d<\/p>\n SA Rugby president Mark Alexander paid tribute to all the nominees, saying their recognition underscored the depth of talent forged under Rassie Erasmus\u2019 stewardship.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have three of the four nominees for World Rugby Men\u2019s 15s Player of the Year and a Breakthrough Player nominee from our country is a testament to the class of this team. We are immensely proud of them all.\u201d<\/p>\n The 2025 World Rugby Awards confirmed winners across men\u2019s and women\u2019s 15s and sevens after a staggered year of announcements.<\/p>\n Fabian Holland claimed Men\u2019s Breakthrough, Santiago Pedrero<\/a> and Maia Joseph<\/a> won Try of the Year, and John Mitchell took Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n Sophie de Goede and Braxton Sorensen-McGee led the women\u2019s honours. In sevens, Luciano Gonzalez<\/a> and Jorja Miller<\/a> earned Player of the Year titles, with Enahemo Artaud and Nia Toliver named Rookies of the Year, and Joji Nasova<\/a>, Marcos Moneta<\/a> and Madi Levi topping the try-scoring charts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SA Rugby have issued a statement following Malcolm Marx\u2019s win in the World Rugby Men\u2019s 15s Player of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-304238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}