Rugby photo of the year 2009: Shortlist

The final six entries to form the shortlist for the IRB's "Rugby Photo of the Year" contest have been published - and one of the six is a women's rugby photo (see right).

This year the competition has a theme - the Spirit of Rugby - so the pictures were selected to show team work, enjoyment, friendship, fair play and so on. The final six include images from professional rugby and grassroots, sevens rugby and 15s.

The picture on the right shows the Australian women's team celebrating winning the first women's Sevens World Cup, and an entry illustrating the winning men's team (Wales) is also shortlisted, as is a picture of New Zealand's Tomasi Cama helping up Richard Kingi of Australia to his feet during the Dubai 7s.

Away from sevens the judges seem to like pictures of players flying through the air - so we have Adam Jones of the Lions and Seilala Mapusua from London Irish in similar airborne poses. Finally there is a picture from Fiji - and a possible ad here for boots even if it doesn't win the prize - as it shows the only booted player on the field running though the mud and bare-footed opposition.

The winner will be announced on November 2nd.