Jack Willis retains Top 14 best player award amid England exile

Jack Willis has retained the Top 14 player of the season award after driving Toulouse to another French league title.

The honour was confirmed on 28 September 2026 at the Nuit du Rugby, French rugby’s annual awards night. Willis finished ahead of Bordeaux-Bègles fly-half Matthieu Jalibert and former Blues playmaker Harry Plummer to take the prize for the 2025-26 campaign, according to BBC.

He is only the second player after Toulouse team-mate Antoine Dupont to win the award in back-to-back years. It caps another huge season for the 29-year-old flanker, the back-row forward whose main job is tackling, carrying and stealing ball at the breakdown.

Willis was player of the match as Toulouse beat Montpellier in the Top 14 final in June. That victory sealed a fourth straight French title for the club, equalling the record run first set by Bordeaux between 1904 and 1907 and later matched by Toulouse themselves in the 1990s. Willis has now won four French titles since arriving in 2022, plus the Champions Cup, Europe’s top club competition, in 2024.

His club success has come at a cost in Test rugby. Willis joined Toulouse in November 2022 after Wasps, his English club, went out of business. He was first given special dispensation to keep playing for England because of those exceptional circumstances, but he has not been eligible since choosing to stay in France.

England’s selection policy only allows players based at English clubs to be picked. Willis has 14 England caps, the last coming against Chile in a pool match at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. He said he knew staying at Toulouse would put him out of England contention.

“Rules are rules,” Willis said. He added that he still wants to play Test rugby and jokingly challenged reporters to find him a way back into the international game.

One route could be Ireland. His grandfather was born in Belfast, and with three years now passed since his last England appearance he is, in theory, available for Ireland selection under World Rugby’s eligibility rules. That rule allows a player to switch nations after a three-year stand-down if they qualify through birth, a parent or a grandparent.

What makes this stand out is the consistency. Few forwards win one player-of-the-season vote in France, a league famed for big packs and star half-backs. To win two in a row, and to do it while locked out of international rugby, says plenty about his form and fitness.