Super Rugby Top 20 players: Bernard Foley and Sonny Bill Williams headline countdown of players 10-6

SUPER Rugby is back and to celebrate its return, we’re counting down the Top 20 Super Rugby players. Check out who came in at numbers 10-6.

Super Rugby Top 20 players: 10-6

SUPER Rugby is back this weekend with seven mouth-watering fixtures taking place across all three nations, beginning with the Crusaders and Rebels on Friday night.

To celebrate the return of rugby’s top provincial competition, we’re counting down the Top 20 Super Rugby players.

Our panel of experts — The Courier-Mail’s Jim Tucker and The Daily Telegraph’s Jamie Pandaram and Iain Payten — have cast their vote, from which our final top 20 was formed.

On Monday we revealed numbers 20-16, including Kurtley Beale and Henry Speight.

On Tuesday we revealed numbers 15-11, including Richie McCaw and Willie le Roux.

Today we continue the countdown with 10-6.

What do you think of our Top 20 Super Rugby players list? Join in the debate by tweeting us at @FoxRugbyLive and @Rugby_Gold by using the hashtag #SuperRugbyTop20.

10. BISMARCK DU PLESSIS (Sharks)

JIM TUCKER says: The imposing hooker is an emblem for the physical, no-holds-barred intensity of the forward play from both the Sharks and Springboks. At 112kg, he makes every kilogram count in his collisions and when ball-running.

He is a one-club forward, who has been a Sharks stalwart in 120 Super Rugby games since his debut in 2005. It niggles at him that the Sharks blew their huge home finals chance last year when they fell back after leading the competition for much of the year.

Du Plessis is a real difference-maker at the core of the Sharks pack, both in scrums and how he takes on opposition forwards.

You know he is in for a big year. He played for the Springboks at both the 2007 and 2011 World Cups but in the shadow of John Smit. He turns 30 in May and this is the year he can make his own mark on the World Cup.

9. JULIAN SAVEA (Hurricanes)

JIM TUCKER says: “The Bus” is not an all-stops service. If he slows down, it’s only to get his trademark shoulder and upper body-led bump cocked to steamroll through yet another hapless defender.

World rugby’s most destructive winger is the matchwinner on the end of the Hurricanes backline and they use him at every opportunity. He scored seven of the Hurricanes tries last year when the team posted 49 in all to narrowly miss the Super Rugby finals.

Savea is listed at 103kg by the Hurricanes but that is conservative because he plays even bigger than that.

Just 24, he is getting better and better which prompted All Blacks coach Steve Hansen to last year rate him as more deadly than Jonah Lomu. He crossed for 11 tries for the All Blacks last year when he was nominated for World Rugby’s Player of the Year award.

8. KIERAN READ (Crusaders)

JAMIE PANDARAM says: Without question the best ball-playing backrower in the world, Read will be the most important weapon in the Crusaders’ arsenal.

His wide-running, off-load popping, lineout-winning, big-tackling all-round game is tough to match on his best day.

The once mighty Crusaders are still searching for their first title win since 2008 and if they recapture the trophy in 2015 it will be upon the shoulders of their mighty No.8.

7. SONNY BILL WILLIAMS (Chiefs)

IAIN PAYTEN says: Bold declaration: Sonny Bill Williams is a better rugby player than he is rugby league player. And let’s be clear given he won an NRL premiership and a Golden Boot just two years ago — SBW is a very, very good rugby league player.

Why is rugby a better fit for the freakish talents of Williams? He is a back in rugby, for starters, so the workload is naturally lighter than an NRL forward. A lighter workload leaves SBW freer to roam and run out wide, and get those giant arms and hands free for those offloads.

When he left rugby in 2012, Williams had helped the Chiefs win a title with offloading and was staring to assert his claim to the All Black No. 12 jersey.

It’d be a brave man — or an American boxer with man boobs — who would say SBW won’t pick up exactly where he left off when he returns to Super Rugby this weekend.

6. BERNARD FOLEY (Waratahs)

IAIN PAYTEN says: His famous 79th minute kick — and six others in the 2014 Super Rugby final — will be forever remembered as the making of Bernard Foley.

The Waratahs No. 10 was ultra-composed when the season was on the line and it reflected a near-flawless season for the Wallaby star. Foley was given the job ahead of Kurtley Beale of running the attack for the Waratahs at the start of the year and he did just that: attacked by running.

The Cheika game plan relied on a playmaker who would consistently challenge the defensive line with passing and running, and in Foley — a former Aussie sevens captain — he had the perfect practitioner.

He was Super Rugby’s leading pointscorer in 2014 and will again be crucial to the Tahs’ hopes of defending their title.

Originally published as Super Rugby Top 20 players: Bernard Foley and Sonny Bill Williams headline countdown of players 10-6