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Wallabies star Len Ikitau surges past World Cup winners in Top 100 rise
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Springboks dominate World Rugby Men's Team of the Year
By Jon Newcombe
Player of the Year Malcolm Marx is one of six South Africans in the World Rugby Men’s 15s Dream Team at the end of another successful year for Rassie Erasmus’ world champions, who claimed back-to-back Rugby Championship titles for the first time this year, and stand tall at the top of the World Rugby Men’s Rankings after winning all their November internationals to date.
Marx makes up one-third of an all-Springbok front-row, alongside Ox Nché and Thomas du Toit, while two-time Player of the Year Pieter-Steph du Toit is named in the back-row.
Fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and winger Cheslin Kolbe complete the South African contingent in the 2025 select team, a year after seven were named in the 2024 list. Marx, Nché, Pieter-Steph du Toit and Kolbe were also in the 2024 team.
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Full-back Will Jordan, another who was named in last year’s XV, and scrum-half Cam Roigard fly the flag for the All Blacks, while Australia (centre Len Ikitau and No.8 Harry Wilson) and England (lock Maro Itoje and flanker Tom Curry) also have two apiece.
Scotland’s outside centre Huw Jones, record-breaking France winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey, and Ireland second-row Tadhg Beirne, the sixth player named two years in a row, complete the line-up.
Argentina are the only top-six ranked country to miss out.
World Rugby Men’s 15s Dream Team of the Year 2025:
1 Ox Nché (South Africa)
2 Malcolm Marx (South Africa)
3 Thomas du Toit (South Africa)
4 Maro Itoje (England)
5 Tadhg Beirne (Ireland)
6 Pieter-Steph du Toit (South Africa)
7 Tom Curry (England)
8 Harry Wilson (Australia)
9 Cam Roigard (New Zealand)
10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (South Africa)
11 Louis Bielle-Biarrey (France)
12 Len Ikitau (Australia)
13 Huw Jones (Scotland)
14 Cheslin Kolbe (South Africa)
15 Will Jordan (New Zealand)
