The 24-year-old Du Toit follows in the footsteps of Lood de Jager, who walked away with the Award for the 2015 season, on a night where no fewer than eight of the winners are aged 25 or younger. The average age of all the players who won awards, is 22.7 years.

The Springbok and Stormers lock fought off strong challenges for the top award from his middle row partner Eben Etzebeth, and a trio of Boks from the Lions, Ruan Combrinck, Jaco Kriel and Warren Whiteley.

The Lions, however, did do exceptionally well at the Awards, with a total of five awards heading back to Ellis Park in Johannesburg.

The winners from Johannesburg are Malcolm Marx (Young Player of the Year), Elton Jantjies (Super Rugby Player of the Tournament), Jacques Nel (Try of the Year) and Johan Ackermann (Coach of the Year), while the “Pride of Jozi”, the Lions, was named Team of the Year after a superb showing in Super Rugby.

The prestigious Players’ Player of the Year Award, voted for by the players themselves, went to Jean-Luc du Preez of the Sharks, who was on Saturday included in the Springbok tour squad for the Barbarians match in London early next month.

The winners in the three categories for national teams were Seabelo Senatla (Springbok Sevens Player of the Year), Curwin Bosch (Junior Springbok Player of the Year), and Marithy Pienaar (Springbok Women Player of the Year). The Referee Award went to Rasta Rasivhenge for a second successive year.

The winners in the various competitions were Jantjies, Ox Nche of the Toyota Free State Cheetahs (Currie Cup Premier Division Player of the Year), Masixole Banda of the Border Bulldogs (Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year) and Western Province’s Damian Willemse (Craven Week Player of the Year).

SA Rugby, for the first time this year, rewarded one of their member unions with a Best Development Award, which went to the Blue Bulls Rugby Union.

“To see so many young players step up and make their mark certainly bodes well for the future and I would like to congratulate all the winners, as well as those who were nominated,” said Mr Mark Alexander, Acting President of SA Rugby.

“Many of the players who won awards this year, will thrill us for many years to come and I’m certainly excited to see what the future holds for them and South African rugby in its entirety.

“It was a challenging year for South African rugby in many respects, but there were still a lot of wonderful achievements worth celebrating and all the players who won awards tonight, fully deserve to walk away with the spoils.”

The award winners are (followed by nominees in alphabetical order):

SA Rugby Player of the Year: Pieter-Steph du Toit

Nominees: Ruan Combrinck, Eben Etzebeth, Jaco Kriel, Warren Whiteley

Young Player of the Year: Malcolm Marx

Nominees: Curwin Bosch, Rohan Janse van Rensburg, Seabelo Senatla, RG Snyman

Players’ Player of the Year: Jean-Luc du Preez (Cell C Sharks)

Team of the Year: Lions (Super Rugby)

Nominees: Springbok Sevens, Toyota Free State Cheetahs (Currie Cup Premier Division)

Coach of the Year: Johan Ackermann (Lions)

Nominees: Brent Janse van Rensburg (Boland), Neil Powell (Springbok Sevens)

Junior Springbok Player of the Year: Curwin Bosch

Nominees: Manie Libbok, Jeremy Ward

SA Sevens Player of the Year: Seabelo Senatla

Nominees: Kyle Brown, Rosko Specman

Vodacom Super Rugby Player of Year: Elton Jantjies (Lions)

Nominees: Ruan Combrinck (Lions), Warren Whiteley (Lions)

Currie Cup Premier Division Player of the Year: Ox Nche (Toyota Free State Cheetahs)

Nominees: Huw Jones (Western Province), Nico Lee (Toyota Free State Cheetahs)

Currie Cup First Division Player of the Year: Masixole Banda (Border)

Nominees: Johan Deysel (Leopards), George Whitehead (Griffons)

Try of the Year: Jacques Nel (Golden Lions v Western Province, Currie Cup Premier Division)

Nominees: Garth April (Sharks v Sunwolves, Super Rugby); Ruan Combrinck (Lions v Crusaders, Super Rugby Qualifier); Rohan Janse van Rensburg (second try, Lions v Bulls, Super Rugby); Paul Jordaan (second try, Sharks v Southern Kings, Super Rugby); Sylvian Mahuza (Lions v Southern Kings, Super Rugby); Courtnall Skosan (Lions v Highlanders,  Super Rugby semi-final and Lions v Crusaders, Super Rugby Qualifier).

Craven Week Player of the Year: Damian Willemse (Western Province)

Referee Award: Rasta Rasivhenge

Springbok Women’s Achiever Award: Marithy Pienaar

Best Development Programme Award: Blue Bulls Rugby Union

Nominees: KwaZulu-Natal Rugby Union, Western Province Rugby Football Union