the Rugby Championship<\/a> in try assists to become the first centre to win the medal since it was introduced in 2002.<\/p>\nIkitau edged out fellow nominees flanker Fraser McReight and captain Harry Wilson, who were unveiled as the other short-listed finalists at Friday night\u2019s ceremony at Sydney\u2019s Town Hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is probably one of the best years that I\u2019ve enjoyed in the Wallabies jersey. In terms of the way we\u2019ve been playing, the way that we want to play, it\u2019s just been exciting,\u201d Ikitau said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a few games where we\u2019ve lost but, overall, I\u2019ve enjoyed my time this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back-rower Tabua Tuinakauvadra was also crowned Wallaroos player of the year for the first time at Australian rugby\u2019s night of nights.<\/p>\n
Tuinakauvadra enjoyed a breakout Pacific Four Series tournament before starring in her maiden Rugby World Cup, helping the Wallaroos to the quarter-finals. Faith Nathan and James Turner were also first-time winners as they claimed the Shawn Mackay Awards for the women\u2019s and men\u2019s sevens players of the year.<\/p>\n
Code-crossing superstar Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii\u2019s first season culminated with him named rookie of the year, the 22-year-old excelling for both the NSW Waratahs and Wallabies.<\/p>\n
Western Force flanker Carlo Tizzano captured the Australian Super Rugby Pacific player of the year title, while Waratahs star Georgina Friedrichs was named Super Rugby\u2019s women\u2019s player of the year.<\/p>\n
Test great George Smith was inducted to the Wallabies Hall of Fame, and Tui Ormsby into the Australian women\u2019s rugby Hall of Fame on Friday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wallabies star Len Ikitau has won the John Eales Medal, becoming the first centre to claim Australian rugby\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-206701","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}