The Rugby Magazine - Fantasy Rugby

[Scrumhead]

I’ve been trying to save up to sign Dan du Preez for a while and the week I drop points to do it, he has his most average display of the season. Typical.

I’ve got 5 players I’m ready to sell and 5 replacements in mind but I never seem to be able to make the transfers I actually want to because selection or injury forces me to do something different.

I’m very pessimistic about this game week ... my bench is unlikely to score me much at all so I’m relying on my starting XV to put in Herculean performances. Jack Willis is the only one to have done so in my squad so far.

[Peej]

Despite not having a bench hooker, prop and two bench players on the bench (and choosing to bench Hassell-Collins) I had one of my best weeks. Have I moved up the leaderboard though? Have I hell

[Shiny]

Despite not having a bench hooker, prop and two bench players on the bench (and choosing to bench Hassell-Collins) I had one of my best weeks. Have I moved up the leaderboard though? Have I hell

The last two rounds have seen some of my best scores of the season but I cant move up our table either.

[Puja]

Holy crap! I got the best score in our league this week. That's *never* happened!

Let's just not look at the 6N competition though.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

Ironically, two of my best scores have come in the weeks where I’ve had to drop points with emergency signings.

I’m really paying for poor decisions I made early on and injuries/6 Nations have messed me up more than I’d anticipated. There are 4 50/50 decisions I made where I picked the wrong option that could easily have given me about another 500+ points if I’d gone the other way.

I’m actually doing better than I was at the same point last season but so is everyone else.

After finishing 27th last season I was hoping for a top 20 finish this year but I think that’s unlikely now. I’d need to be lucky with selection and injuries and nail the captain choice every single week to make up lost ground.

[Peej]

What's the craic with having Irish and Italian players in our teams? Are we being given a dispensation or extra transfers?

[Scrumhead]

Look in your inbox in the game.

It’s average points for each player from Ireland or Italy. Same as it was for cancelled games in the RWC.

[Peej]

Ah cheers

[Scrumhead]

If anyone’s interested, this would be the Squad of the Season if no more games are played:

I picked the squad based upon points scored to date, and made selections using the tactical flexibility of certain players to pull together the best squad possible for the £7m budget.

Here’s the optimal match day 23:

1. Beno Obano (Bath) - 284pts
2. Franco Marais (Gloucester) - 373pts
3. Oli Hoskins (London Irish) - 312pts
4. Chris Vui (Bristol Bears) - 377pts
5. Jonny Hill (Exeter Chiefs) - 350pts
6. Dan du Preez (Sale Sharks) - 412pts
7. Ben Earl (Saracens) - 350pts
8. Sam Simmonds (Exeter Chiefs) - 866pts*
9. Dan Robson (Wasps) - 377pts
10. Marcus Smith (Harlequins) - 396pts
11. Gabriel Ibitoye (Harlequins) - 296pts
12. Rob du Preez (Sale Shark) - 333pts
13. Charles Piutau (Bristol Bears) - 329pts
14. Ollie Hassell-Collins (London Irish) - 293pts
15. Luke Morahan (Bristol Bears) - 329pts

16. Tom Dunn (Bath) - 133pts*
17. Ethan Waller (Worcester Warriors) - 122pts*
18. Nick Isiekwe (Saracens) - 175pts*
19. Teimana Harrison (Northampton Saints) - 175pts*
20. Rhys Priestland (Bath) - 186pts*
21. Callum Sheedy (Bristol Bears) - 183pts*
22. Taqele Naiyarovoro (Northampton Saints) - 126pts*
23. Tom Marshall (Gloucester) - 130pts*

The next best who would make up the rest of the squad are:

Rob Webber (Sale Sharks) - 257pts
Elliot Stooke (Bath) - 309pts
Blair Cowan (London Irish) - 330pts
Francois Hougaard (Worcester Warriors) - 324pts
Byron McGuigan (Sale Sharks) - 250pts

*I put Sam Simmonds as the best possible captain (double scores) and all of the bench on half scores as if this were an actual game week lineup.

To date it would have scored 6,903 points if you’d left that lineup. Obviously more if you’d rotated injured players etc.

Quite surprising in some areas. Based upon the scores from the handful of games some of the international players have played, there’s a chance would likely have overhauled some of the players included if the remaining games were played.

[Shiny]

Website is back up with some players moved clubs within the premiership and some removed if they moved overseas. I have some shopping to do.

[Scrumhead]

Yep. There will be free transfers (not sure on the limit) to account for any squad changes and you’ll also get the money for anyone who has transferred out of the league (moved to France or the Pro14 etc).

[Scrumhead]

15x free transfers now confirmed for Round 14 and 2 free transfer per week until the end of the season to balance out the expected rotation.

I’m looking forward to getting started again.

[Puja]

I have completely forgotten who is in my squad!

Puja

[Shiny]

I have completely forgotten who is in my squad!

Puja

I had to check, and then got a bit depressed as I have lost Cobus Reinach and my main points scoring machine.

[Scrumhead]

Reinach wasn’t so much of a points machine this season. He missed a bunch of games post RWC and was only just getting back in to his stride when COVID-19 hit.

15 free transfers is a lot, particularly if you already have a bunch of cash from players that have already left (in my case Reinach, Tompkins and Ibitoye).

I think I’ll be making some tweaks to refresh my squad rather than massive surgery.

The hard part is going to be planning around rotation.

[Puja]

I've got cash for Marais leaving, despite the fact he's now back! Free free transfer.

There's a good few undervalued players in there to my mind. I'll wait to do major surgery until I see the first teamsheets, but there's more than a couple of bargains on my list to pick up.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

Same here. Although I’m not sure how much weight to put on form from earlier in the season? Who know if/how well that will carry over after months of no rugby.

[Scrumhead]

First squads now named ... don’t forget to update your teams tomorrow.

[Shiny]

And for anyone still in the RM Cup they have declared it a cup weekend (third Round).

[Scrumhead]

I managed to re-jig my squad to how I wanted it and I still have £775k to spare. TBH, I think I’ll need that over the coming weeks with all the rotation we’ll be seeing.

[Puja]

I've pretty much completely retooled my squad. 14 transfers left a lot of leeway for some major surgery. Whether I'll be able to put out an XV next week will be up for debate, mind...

[Puja]

Just made last minute tweaks that I will no doubt regret later. It's probably worth everyone else putting Joe Marchant as their captain, as I've just dropped him to the bench to make room for Lawrence.

Puja

[Scrumhead]

I've pretty much completely retooled my squad. 14 transfers left a lot of leeway for some major surgery. Whether I'll be able to put out an XV next week will be up for debate, mind...

Yep. That’s going to be the tricky part. With loads of rotation to come, I’d expect a bunch of the players starting now to be stood down either next week or for round 16 (the mid week games).

At least two free transfers per week will help.

[Peej]

Good to see the long break hasn't reduced my ability to make terrible choices

[Scrumhead]

Ha. Playing Dan du Preez is my biggest mistake so far this round. Any one of the back rowers I didn’t pick to start will comfortably out score him this round.