RUGBY:RAPIDLY BECOMING the most decorated player in Europe, Tommy Bowe was last night crowned as the Players' Player at the inaugural Magners League Awards ceremony staged at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. This follows on from the Ospreys and Irish winger's dual accolades at the end of last season when he was chosen as the players' player of the year in both Ireland and Wales.

All told, since his move from Ulster to the Ospreys two summers ago, Bowe has been a key part of the Irish team that won the Grand Slam and went through 2009 unbeaten, whilst also nailing down a Test place for the Lions in their three-match series against the Springboks, and of the Ospreys team that won last season’s Magners League.

Last season he scored 20 tries in 32 games, all but one in the starting team for club or country, 15 of them for the Ospreys (eight in the Magners League and seven in the Heineken Cup) as well as five for Ireland. This augmented his 14 tries from 30 games the season before, which also included five for his country.

Bowe emerged the winner from a shortlist that included the Cardiff Blues duo of Xavier Rush and Ceri Sweeney, the league’s top try scorer Tim Visser of Edinburgh, and Dragons wing Aled Brew.

Now well versed in making acceptance speeches, the 26-year-old said this latest honour “rounds off the season very nicely indeed. But this has to close the door on the 2009/2010 season because the aim now is to go on and successfully defend our title. We know that is going to be a very hard thing to do – and that no team has been able to do that in the past”.

Visser, who scored 10 tries in 17 league games last season, was chosen as the young player of the season from a shortlist that included Cian Healy, while justifiably Paul Turner won the coach of the season award for guiding the Dragons to seventh place last season, within six points of the play-offs, and an automatic Heineken Cup place.

Former Connacht coach Michael Bradley was honoured with the Celtic Rugby Chairman’s Award after eight seasons and 138 games in charge of the province.

Scarlets winger Ken Owens won the try of the season award, and Edinburgh’s Chris Paterson claimed the golden boot award after a remarkable success rate of 88.89 per cent from his 45 kicks at goal.

The Cardiff Blues picked up a cheque for £10,000 (€12,252) as the winners of the Fairplay Award.