{"id":20896,"date":"2025-12-11T09:44:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T07:44:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/savea-named-new-zealands-best-for-third-time\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:06","slug":"savea-named-new-zealands-best-for-third-time","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/savea-named-new-zealands-best-for-third-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Savea named New Zealand&#8217;s best for third time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>All Black Ardie Savea was named the best rugby player in New Zealand for the third time this Thursday after a season in which he won his 100th test cap and inspired Moana Pasifika to their best Super Rugby campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old loose forward added a third Kelvin R Tremain Memorial Player of the Year award to his 2019 and 2023 honours at Thursday&#8217;s New Zealand Rugby awards.<\/p>\n<p>He also walked away with the prizes for the best All Blacks player and best New Zealand Super Rugby player.<\/p>\n<p>Savea, World Rugby Player of the Year in 2023, in May won the inaugural overall Super Rugby Player of the Year award with two rounds of the season still to play.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ardie has a level of consistency that is unmatched, and his three awards tonight demonstrate that,&#8221; New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He keeps raising the bar for what&#8217;s possible on an individual level, and brings his inspirational leadership to every environment. He is massively respected domestically and internationally.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Teenager Braxton Sorensen-McGee, World Rugby&#8217;s Women&#8217;s Breakthrough Player of the Year in 2025, won the Black Ferns Player of the Year and New Zealand Age Grade Player of the Year.<\/p>\n<p>Jorja Miller, who won the Kelvin R Tremain award last year, added the Black Ferns Sevens Player of the Year award to her World Rugby Women&#8217;s Sevens Player of the Year title.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14928,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-20896","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"He also walked away with the prizes for the best All Blacks player and best New Zealand Super Rugby player.","published_date":null,"news_description":"He also walked away with the prizes for the best All Blacks player and best New Zealand Super Rugby player.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24766,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/20896\/revisions\/24766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=20896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}