LONG READ Wallabies awards: Ikitau, Jorgensen & Hooper stand out in up-then-down year

A long and ultimately frustrating year for Wallabies players, coaches, staff and supporters, a year that forced a rapid adjustment of expectations several times, is finally over.

And there’s an irony in the way the November Internationals finished, in that after a month of less than convincing performances, the Wallabies actually looked the best they have all tour – yet still conceded the most tries and highest score of their five Test Matches.

The 48-33 loss in lightly falling snow in Paris included a first half comprising welcome shape and width in attack, and a much improved breakdown, but then a second half that let much of that good work down, as the silly mistakes, poor decisions, skill errors and ill-discipline crept back in.

The curtain has therefore come down on the Australian rugby year, and all that remains is to hand out the obligatory brickbats and bouquets for 2025.

Player of the Year: Len Ikitau

The best measure of Ikitau’s quality for Australia this year is best measured by his absence.

Having held the midfield together through the Lions Series and The Rugby Championship, Ikitau’s move to Exeter after completion of the Bledisloe Cup Tests took him out of Wallabies calculations for the Japan and England Tests, and then the Italy match too, as Joe Schmidt elected to ease him back in for Ireland and France.

In his absence, the Wallabies lost a lot of the midfield shape they had previously, and the connection across the backline kind of disappeared, too.

That is not to apportion blame for all of this on his replacement, Hunter Paisami, but just to illustrate how it wasn’t so obvious what Ikitau brought to the team until he wasn’t in it.

While Paisami and Ikitau were very much on a par as players perhaps as recently as 18 months ago, the arrival of Australian rugby’s mega-signing Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii pushed Ikitau in one position this time last year – reportedly very reluctantly – and it took his game to ridiculous new heights. He’s now such a good inside centre that he may never wear the Wallabies No.13 jersey again.

The generally accepted summary of Ikitau v.2025 is that ‘he makes everyone around him better’. His vision and communication on and off the ball is superb, and his close-range ball-carrying has become invaluable.

He’s very clearly been the best Wallaby this season, and this is probably the easiest award to hand out in 2025, even with a nod to the super impressive Fraser McReight, who along with Ikitau would be one of few Australian players to finish the year with their standing enhanced.

Most Improved Player: Tom Hooper

If Ikitau is an easy pick for POTY, Hooper isn’t much more difficult in this category.

After an outstanding Super Rugby Pacific season, in which he finished fourth overall in the Player of the Year standings and was the leading Australian player, Hooper simply took off Brumbies navy blue, put on Wallabies gold and carried on playing the same way.

His ball-carrying has been top notch all season, his work rate is high and he is regularly among the top tacklers in games, becoming one of the most reliable Wallabies forwards in the current squad.

Hooper has also become quite adaptable and versatile in 2025, playing both lock and back-row through the Test year and alternately covering both units when coming off the bench. He played a couple of Super Rugby games at No.8 this season, and has notably worn No.7 at both levels, as well.

Carlo Tizzano gets a shout-out in this category, and much of the reasoning for Hooper similarly applies to the Western Australian. Tizzano even pipped Hooper as Rugby Australia’s Super Rugby POTY award winner, in fact.

Try of the Year

The scorer of the winner is easy: Max Jorgensen. You can narrow it down to whichever try you thought was best.

Working backwards, you can have the 70-metre runaway grubber-kick beauty last weekend in Paris, which came from an incredible Josh Nasser offload that I fear is being criminally under-appreciated.

Or there was the 60-metre beauty at Ellis Park, which started from a pretty speculative James O’Connor long pass over the Springboks defenders and ended with a clean run-in after metaphorically breaking Manie Libbok’s ankles with the left foot step. This one put the Wallabies nine points clear inside the last 15 minutes and had bleary-eyed fans back home starting to wonder if the previously impossible was about to happen.

Then there was the incredible scoop pick-up on the run beauty against the Lions in Sydney, after a massive Suaalii hit in midfield, forcing the ball loose. That one was only from halfway, if distance is a deciding factor for you.

There was also the freakish regather from a Jake Gordon box-kick in the first Lions Test in Brisbane, where the wonderkid didn’t really win the aerial contest, yet somehow came down with the ball and looked up to see nobody and nothing but goalposts in front of him. That one was only from halfway, too.

Any of those four are worthy contenders.

The biggest of all shout-outs goes to James Slipper, who scored the Wallabies’ first try against the British & Irish Lions in Melbourne from close range. Like, less-than-a-metre close range.

Shout-outs to both Harry Wilson’s clear-air runaway tries in Johannesburg, and even to Angus Bell’s runaway effort in Paris last weekend.

And to a couple from Tom Wright, too. The runaway effort at Ellis Park that Jorgensen started back near the Wallabies’ 22, and which Wright finished at the other end – ending Australia’s six-decade drought at the cauldron of South African rugby – or the runaway effort against the Lions in Melbourne, from a Suaalii tackle-bust and line-break in midfield.

But the biggest of all shout-outs goes to James Slipper, who scored the Wallabies’ first try against the British & Irish Lions in Melbourne from close range. Like, less-than-a-metre close range.

Non-Try of the Year

Slipper’s pick-and-drive special at the MCG was his fourth career Test try and he’s said already it’s his favourite, but it very nearly wasn’t his last.

After the Wallabies made a break down the left edge in the second Bledisloe Test in Perth, Harry Potter wheeled back infield to link up with support, finding Will Skelton rampaging toward the right upright. The big lock went down, but popped a great pass as he was falling to… Slipper!

Unfortunately, ‘Slips’ was stopped just centimetres short. And we were robbed of the undisputed Try of the Year.

High water-mark of the year?

If it wasn’t Jorgensen’s try in the 66^th minute at Ellis Park for the Wallabies to go nine points clear, it has to be when Wright sealed the most incredible Wallabies win in generations in the 76^th minute.

Coming just two weeks after Australia beat the Lions comfortably in the Third Test in Sydney, which in turn was only a week after the Wallabies were a fraction of a second at one crucial breakdown contest away from winning the Second Test in Melbourne, this was the time when Australian rugby fans were really starting to believe that Joe Schmidt had turned the team around and that the unspeakable pain of 2023 was all worth it.

But, as we’ve since learned repeatedly over the subsequent weeks and matches, that magic month for the Wallabies has proved impossible to replicate, or even come close to replicating.

There have been numerous reasons for that, including – but not limited to – the fact that 15 Tests in five months against the Lions and every international team in the current top six is a bloody big ask. Whatever the reasons, the Wallabies just haven’t been able to maintain this level in the months following.

But can they get back to that Ellis Park high? Well, I sure hope so. We’ve got less than two years to a home Rugby World Cup to find out.

The low point?

I still haven’t worked out if the in-game decline against Italy in Udine was worse than the very flat 80 minutes against England at Twickenham, but whichever loss was worse, that week was clearly the low point in the Wallabies season.

There was a real change of mood in social media and online commentary that week, especially toward Schmidt, to the point that if the Kiwi head coach does choose to walk away after this season, there won’t be a lot of resistance to such a move.

They probably played their best game of the whole northern tour against France on Saturday. But with confidence severely dented over this last month, not a lot had to turn against them for the result to go the same way.

The England loss was disappointing for the lack of answers, whereas the Wallabies still led Italy into the last half an hour. From there it was silly mistake after dumb penalty after poor decision, and the result turned with two converted tries in a matter of minutes.

Australia never recovered from there. They had their moments against Ireland last week, and – I’ll repeat – probably played their best game of the whole northern tour against France on Saturday. But with confidence severely dented over this last month, not a lot had to turn against them for the result to go the same way.

The unenviable recovery job now falls to the Super Rugby coaches, for whom the players will report for pre-season in January. The silver lining here is that several teams noted the determination of Wallabies players during the 2024 pre-season, as they worked hard to rebuild similarly damaged confidence after a shattering 2023 RWC.

Let’s hope that little titbit of history repeats.

Unsung hero No.1

Mike Cron has already finished up as Wallabies scrum coach, with Brumbies assistant John Ulugia replacing him on their November tour, but whatever the ‘scrum doctor’ sprinkled on the Wallabies pack this season has held all year.

Remarkably – and I’ve kept checking this to be sure – the Wallabies’ scrum record in 2025 reads: 99 wins and just one solitary loss (against Fiji in Newcastle).

Through the Fiji Test, the Lions Series and The Rugby Championship, the record was 66 and 1, and they kept the sheet clean through the November Tests, going 33 and 0 in Japan and Europe.

When you consider how recently the Wallabies’ scrum has been an ongoing concern, losing just one scrum across a whole 15-Test season is quite extraordinary. Kudos to you, Mr Cron.

Unsung hero No.2

From the Lions Series onwards, Australia followed the Six Nations teams by adding the players’ names to the backs of their jerseys. I’m not a huge fan of it, but I get the reasoning behind it.

And I can only doff the cap to the Wallabies kit people who, at the first attempt and every time since, have managed to fit ‘CHAMPION DE CRESPIGNY’ on the back of a jersey – and not need to utilise space on sleeves.

True heroes, all of them.