2019 World XV

Rugby World has turned global selector to pick a dream team of this year’s best players

- Alan Dymock, Sarah Mockford & Alan Pearey

THE CHALLENGE: pick a team of the world’s best players in 2019. It’s hardly an easy task with which to sign off the year, but it is undoubtedly an interesting one. We decided to focus on individuals and pick the best player in each position rather than ponder a team – as this is a fantasy scenario, we don’t have to worry about how combinations would actually work in a match. We took into account players’ form over the past year for club and country and looked for skills that set them apart from other contenders.

Our World XV is revealed over the following pages and, as ever, we want to know what you think. So please email your views and your own world XVs to [e-mail] or get in touch via Twitter @Rugbyworldmag and Facebook Rugby World Magazine.

LIAM WILLIAMS

Position Full-back Age 28 (9 April 1991)

IT TAKES some players to keep Beauden Barrett and Stuart Hogg out of our World XV, but Williams’s vintage form in 2019 demands his inclusion. The full-back played a pivotal role in two of the year’s blockbusters, Wales-England and Saracens-Leinster, and the groans echoed down the Welsh valleys when he was ruled out of the RWC 2019 semi-final after a training accident.

That Six Nations clash with England showed him at his ‘bomb-defusing’ best as he nullified the visitors’ aerial assault. Then, in the Heineken Cup final against Leinster, he produced a moment of try-saving brilliance, shooting out of the line to close down Garry Ringrose and winning the breakdown collision against No 8 Jack Conan to earn a relieving penalty. From 10-10, Sarries went on to lift the cup.

The former scaffolder might never have hit the heights had he not been spotted by ex-Wales prop Anthony Buchanan and spirited away from his junior club Waunarlwydd to Llanelli RFC and thence the Scarlets.