Champions Cup win would put Van der Flier on pole for European award

Strangely it is 10 years since an Irishman was last crowned European Player of the Year. The list of past winners is impressive – Antoine Dupont, Maro Itoje, Owen Farrell, Jonny Wilkinson – but an Anglo-French duopoly has existed since 2012 when Rob Kearney, the Leinster, Ireland and Lions full-back, collected the award.

This time around the all-action Grégory Alldritt will be a warm favourite if La Rochelle win Saturday’s Champions Cup final in Marseille. Should Leinster prevail, though, they have three strong shortlisted contenders in Caelan Doris, James Lowe and Josh van der Flier. It is no disrespect to the excellent Doris and Lowe to suggest the latter would be a worthy winner.

Because the 29-year-old Van der Flier – pronounced as in “fear” rather than “liar” – has been comfortably the most improved top player in the northern hemisphere these past 12 months. This time a year ago he was conspicuously overlooked for the British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa; if it was being picked this week he would be all but inked into the Test back-row.

If there has been a recurring image across this season, aside from the blue shirts of the all-conquering French national team, it has been the unmistakable red headgear of Van der Flier, either pouncing repeatedly on breakdown opportunities or being singled out by the TV cameras as the man of the match. He was not named Ireland’s players’ player of the year this month on a whim.

So what has he suddenly started having for breakfast? The flanker seems to enjoy the joke – “I wish there was a bit of spinach I could put it down to” – but the biggest difference is the way he now approaches the game. There was a time when he was in danger of becoming so bogged down in detail and so