Seabelo Senatla (South Africa) \u2013<\/strong> The youngest of the three nominees, Senatla ended the season as the leading try scorer with 47 tries and has scored two of this year\u2019s fans\u2019 favourites, as well as scoring in each of South Africa\u2019s Cup final victories in Dubai and Port Elizabeth. His blistering pace has been one of the talking points of the season, with few able to catch him when he is in full flow.<\/p>\nWorld Rugby Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: \u201cThis has been the most exciting and closely-fought series to date as we build momentum towards rugby sevens\u2019 Olympic Games debut at Rio 2016. Once again, through tremendous skill, excitement, full stadia and record TV audiences, we have seen why sevens is such a hit with fans around the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the heart of the success story are our players and this year\u2019s nominees have proven once again that we have some exceptionally talented players on the series with each of them fully deserving of a place on the shortlist.\u201d<\/p>\n
Giles Morgan, Group Head of Sponsorship for HSBC Holdings said: \u201cWith the added excitement of Olympic qualification this season, this has been an extremely competitive HSBC Sevens World Series. Rugby sevens is a team sport but these three individuals have shone for their sides, bringing a combination of skill and entertainment to the Series and helping showcase the sport in the build-up to the Olympics next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The three players are the first World Rugby Award nominees to be announced in 2015 with all awards being presented at the World Rugby Awards dinner following the Rugby World Cup 2015 final in England.<\/p>\n
World Rugby Sevens Player of the Year – Roll of honour<\/strong>
\n2014 Samisoni Viriviri, Fiji
\n2013 Tim Mikkelson, New Zealand
\n2012 Tomasi Cama, New Zealand
\n2011 Cecil Afrika, South Africa
\n2010 Mikaele Pesamino, Samoa
\n2009 Ollie Phillips, England
\n2008 DJ Forbes, New Zealand
\n2007 Afeleke Pelenise, New Zealand
\n2006 Uale Mai, Samoa
\n2005 Orene Ai’i, New Zealand
\n2004 Simon Amor, England<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Seabelo Senatla ended the season as top try scorer – Photo: World Rugby\/Martin Seras Lima – Two South Africans and one Fijian nominated – Winner will be announced on 1 November A shortlist of three nominees \u2013 two South Africans and one Fijian \u2013 have been unveiled for the 2015 World Rugby Sevens Player […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[451,165,2448,2359,2441,35],"class_list":["post-6235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","tag-nominees","tag-player","tag-sevens","tag-trio","tag-world","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6237,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6235\/revisions\/6237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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