Conspiracy?

And the nominees for the official Six Nations Player of the Year are:

Sam Warburton – who has only played twice so far;

Dan Lydiate – fair enough;

Alex Cuthbert – good against Scotland and Italy, distinctly average otherwise;

Mike Phillips – not even the best in Wales;

Julien Malzieu – recently dropped by France;

Yoann Maestri – decent find by France, but really?

Imanol Harinordoquy – OK, fair enough, excellent as usual;

David Denton – great, but has managed to finish on the losing side in every match so far;

Ross Rennie – ditto;

Sergio Parisse – ditto;

Jonny Sexton – still not trusted by Declan Kidney to close a game out; and

Donnacha Ryan – very good indeed but has started only once this tournament.

Not one English player features. Cue the conspiracy theories.

I guess we’ll have to hope that one of the two Englishmen nominated, Alex Cuthbert and Dan Lydiate, get the nod :)