{"id":968999,"date":"2026-05-18T15:25:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T15:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/968999\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T15:25:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T15:25:19","slug":"ellie-kildunne-england-star-beats-finn-russell-to-prestigious-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/968999\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellie Kildunne: England star beats Finn Russell to prestigious award"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbarians<\/a><\/p>\n

England full-back Ellie Kildunne has been crowned the Rugby Union Writers\u2019 Club personality of the year for 2025-2026 after another outstanding 12 months in the game.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kildunne succeeds France star Louis Bielle-Biarrey as holder of the Pat Marshall Memorial Award following a successful year that peaked when helping the Red Roses lift the World Cup in September.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old from Yorkshire won the members\u2019 vote by a landslide, polling ahead of Finn Russell in second place with Bielle-Biarrey and her England<\/a> team-mate Zoe Stratford close behind.<\/p>\n

Special company<\/p>\n

She is the fourth woman to win the award after Maggie Alphonsi (2010), Emily Scarratt (2014) and Sarah Hunter (2022).<\/p>\n

It continues a memorable 2025-26 for Kildunne<\/a>, whose highlights on the field included scoring two dazzling tries in the World Cup semi-final victory over France and another electric solo effort a week later to help see off Canada in the final.<\/p>\n

Her achievements saw her finish runner-up in BBC Sports Personality of the Year after becoming the first women\u2019s rugby player to be shortlisted and she was even immortalised in a custom made Barbie doll.<\/p>\n

Comment: England remain the standard bearers after fifth successive Six Nations Grand Slam and Ellie Kildunne\u2019s chilling warning suggests there is more to come<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday Kildunne scored two tries as England wrapped another Six Nations<\/a> Grand Slam, their fifth successive clean sweep and eighth straight Championship title.<\/p>\n

She finished the tournament with five tries to her name after featuring both at full-back and wing under head coach John Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

Following greats<\/p>\n

The prestigious RUWC personality of the year award is now in its 50th year with Wales and British and Irish Lions great Mervyn Davies the first winner in 1976.<\/p>\n

Kildunne follows in the footsteps of previous stars to have been acclaimed by the RUWC such as Sir Gareth Edwards, Jonah Lomu, Martin Johnson, Jonny Wilkinson, Dan Carter and Siya Kolisi.<\/p>\n

She came out on top of a poll of the RUWC\u2019s 250-plus members encompassing writers, photographers, broadcasters and digital creators.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: England star Ellie Kildunne learns Sports Personality of the Year fate<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England full-back Ellie Kildunne has been crowned the Rugby Union Writers\u2019 Club personality of the year for 2025-2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":969000,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,119459,393,4884,225,90462,12,4214,4209,16,15],"class_list":["post-968999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-england","tag-britain","tag-ellie-kildunne","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-news","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-six-nations","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116596279065441820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968999"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968999\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/969000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}