{"id":277834,"date":"2025-11-22T20:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T20:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/277834\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T20:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T20:58:09","slug":"fabian-holland-named-world-rugby-breakthrough-player-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/277834\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabian Holland named World Rugby breakthrough player of the year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

All Blacks<\/a> second-row Fabian Holland<\/a> has been named the World Rugby breakthrough player of the year.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old becomes the sixth Kiwi to scoop the award since its inauguration in 2015, following in the footsteps of team-mate Wallace Sititi<\/a>, who took home the award last year.<\/p>\n

The Dutch-born Highlander beat England<\/a> and British and Irish Lions<\/a> flanker Henry Pollock<\/a>, South Africa\u2019s Ethan Hooker<\/a> and Australia\u2019s Joseph-Aukuso Sua\u2019ali\u2019i to claim the prize.<\/p>\n

Since making his debut against France<\/a> in July, the 6 ft 8 in forward has become a mainstay in the All Blacks\u2019 engine room, earning his 12th cap in the 52-26 victory over Wales<\/a> today at the Principality Stadium.<\/p>\n

The win in Cardiff brought Holland\u2019s season to an end, which has been crowned with this award.<\/p>\n

\"Team Match Summary \"Team <\/p>\n

\u201cFabian\u2019s story is like something out of a movie,\u201d said All Blacks boss Scott Robertson. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe has grown up in the Netherlands<\/a> dreaming of playing for a team on the other side of the world, taken the brave move to shift to New Zealand<\/a> at the age of 16, and then made his dream a reality. None of this is by chance or luck, Fabian works incredibly hard to meet his goals and is one of the most determined and focused players I have come across. It is that work ethic that will see him continue to succeed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are just so proud of him and so pleased for him and his family to receive this special acknowledgement of what he has achieved this year.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All Blacks second-row Fabian Holland has been named the World Rugby breakthrough player of the year. The 23-year-old…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-277834","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\/277834","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=277834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}