Six Ireland stars in world rugby ‘Top 20’ but still some glaring omissions

Patrick McCarry

Good to see so many Irish players included, but a couple have been sold short.

The beauty of any Top 5 and Top 10 list is that you will never have everyone agreeing. When you have a top 100 players in world rugby list, then, it is just a huge debate waiting to happen.

Ahead of the World Cup, The Telegraph tasked three of their rugby writers to knock their heads together and select the best 100 players in world rugby, right now. Such lists will always have a touch of subjectivity to it, but Jack Willis is the sole English inclusion in the top 40, so the trio cannot be accused of home-town bias.

Ireland with five inclusions in world rugby ‘Top 20’

In their comprehensive ‘100 best rugby players in the world’ list, which was spread over five parts, Antoine Dupont gets the honour of claiming top spot. Few will dispute that the Toulouse and France No.9 has been the most consistently excellent player in world rugby over the past three years.

Grègory Alldritt (France), Eben Etzebeth (South Africa) and Ardie Savea (New Zealand) make up the rest of the top four, before Irish players take five of the next eight spots.

Here are the Ireland players that made the top 20, and (in brackets) their final position:

Caelan Doris (5)
Tadhg Beirne (7)
Hugo Keenan (10)
Dan Sheehan (11)
James Ryan (12)
Johnny Sexton (14)

It is a pleasant surprise to see James Ryan (he was No.11 in our Irish ‘Top 20’ from earlier this year). Having Alldritt and Savea in the top five adds extra credibility to that ‘Top 100’ world rugby list but two Ireland players have been sold badly short.

Ireland players, including Tadhg Beirne and Josh van der Flier, celebrate victory over England, in 2022. (Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile)

Two Ireland players sold short

While Garry Ringrose (21) is the next Irish player on that Telegraph list of top 100 players on the planet, you have to go down to No.26 to find the 2022 World Rugby Player of the Year, Josh van der Flier.

In our opinion, argued here, van der Flier was just as good in 2022/23 as he was in 2021/22, when he was named the world’s best player by an expert panel. The three-man judging panel write:

‘A quite phenomenal boost in ball-carrying has invigorated Van der Flier’s career. Not only is the openside – and reigning world player of the year – capable of piercing tight defences or accelerating away from tacklers when given space; he does these things relentlessly across the course of a game.’

Still, all those plaudits are not enough to convince the writers that the Ireland back row deserves a place in the top five, 10… or 25.

Also surprisingly low on that list is Tadhg Furlong (35th) while the highest ranked player with no Test experience is Emmanuel Meafou (37th). The Toulouse lock was born in New Zealand and raised in Australia, but eligible to play for France next year.

You can check out that Top 20 here, with links to the other 80 positions included within the piece.