Fabian Holland becomes the sixth Kiwi to win World Rugby's Breakthrough Player of the Year award. Photo: www.photosport.nz
Towering All Blacks lock Fabian Holland has capped a stellar debut season by being named World Rugby's Breakthrough Player of the Year for 2025.
The 23-year-old Highlander played his first test in July against France, with his aerial skills catching the eye of the selectors.
In making his step-up to the world stage, the modest Dutch-born lock has insisted he's "just the middle part" of the lineout.
He featured in 11 of New Zealand's 12 internationals this season, rapidly becoming the go-to player in the set-piece.
In fact, the only game he missed was the All Blacks' recent loss to England, due to illness.
His workrate and no-backward-step physicality quickly ensured his place in the team.
Holland relocated from Amsterdam to Christchurch at the age of 16 to attend Christchurch Boys' High School.
He progressed rapidly from the First XV to the New Zealand U20s, before making his provincial debut for Otago in 2021.
In 2023, Holland impressed for the All Blacks XV, producing a standout man-of-the-match performance against Munster in Ireland.
Holland is the sixth All Black to be named Breakthrough Player of the Year, following in the footsteps of teammate Wallace Sititi, who took home the award last year.
South Africa hooker Malcolm Marx was named World Rugby Men's 15s Player of the Year, the fourth Springbok to claim the individual award - seven years after he was first nominated.
Marx took the award ahead of Springbok teammates Pieter-Steph du Toit, twice a winner, and Ox Nché, as well as French winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey.
Nché hoped to become the first prop to win the prize and had a strong case.
Marx joined Du Toit (2019 & 2024), Bryan Habana (2007) and Schalk Burger (2004) as South African recipients of the award.
"I don't think it's really sunk in to be honest," Marx said, after a player-of-the-match display against Ireland. "To be fair, none of this is achieved without the team environment we have, without the management, without the players.
"We are tightknit group and things like this happen, when you have a group that we have. In my opinion, this isn't for me just an individual award - I think it's more a team award, because the support and the structures that we have for guys to express themselves is unbelievable."
- Reuters/RNZ
