In the lead-up to the Women’s Rugby World Cup, here on FRG we aim to give you the ins and outs of all the available games in place. If any new games pop up, please let us know at fantasyrugbygeek@gmail.com or @frugbygeek on Twitter. Today we’re looking at the Offical Women’s Rugby World Cup game which went live today, check it out here.
Before we look at the game…
Earlier on this year some of you may remember the podcast that I made through the Six Nations with my friend Paul Tristram, “Six Nations Fantasy Rugby: Geeks on the Go”. In the last week Paul and his family have discovered that Paul needs immediate heart surgery. He’s known about his condition for many years, but due to misreadings on his scans, its become critical he gets the surgery ASAP. Due to no fault of his own, there is no NHS appointments until January. Therefore his immediate surgery will need to be scheduled privately, costing £30k. A GoFundMe page has been set up by Paul’s fiance, family and friends to raise funds for his surgery (the GoFundMe page can be found here).
Those of you who listened to the podcast will know just how much Paul loved his fantasy rugby. So with brand new fantasy games kicking off for both The Rugby Championship and the Women’s Rugby World Cup in the next two weeks, I have set up prize leagues for both, with 50% of the prize pot going directly to Paul’s GoFundMe and the remaining 50% going to the winners.
The entry fee to join each league will be £10. You can join just the The Rugby Championship league or just the Women’s Rugby World Cup league, it’s entirely up to you. Or you can be a legend and join both!
For both leagues, the prize pot will then be distributed 25% to the overall winner of each competition, 15% to second place, 10% to third place and the remaining 50% will go directly to Paul’s GoFundMe page.
To join, please email me at fantasyrugbygeek@gmail.com or DM me on the FRG X or FRG Instagram and I will share details of my PayPal for you to send me the entry fee. Once I have received the entry fee I’ll email back the link to join the private league.
Now back to the Women’s Rufgby World Cup game overview…
THE PREMISE
The Official Women’s Rugby World Cup fantasy game is a salary cap style fantasy game from the makers of the Rugby Championship and Super Rugby official games. You have a budget of $100 to fill your team of 15 with players. You must pick 1 Hooker, 2 Props, 2 Second Rows, 3 Back Rows, 1 Scrum Half, 1 Fly Half, 2 Centres and 3 Outside Backs
Once the tournament gets underway, you can make unlimited transfers throughout the tournament, and you can shift your captain around reguarly too (1 captain change in each of the 3 “rounds” of the pool stage and 3 in the knockout stage – which includes the Bronze medal match).
The Rolling Lockout is an important point to note, particularly useful with squad announcements for the last matches in each round taking place after each round has started. At the start of the Round, your whole team will NOT lockout, and you can continue making trades. Players will lockout individually when their team starts playing in the Round. You may not make any Transfers involving locked out players until the end of the Round (For example, if you have players from England or USA in your team, they will Lockout at the beginning of Round 1 as they feature in the first game. However, all other players in your team will remain unlocked and eligible to transfer).
One nice innovation (and one element you will know about from the Super Rugby and Rugby Championship games) is the use of score “boosters”. There are 3 boosters that are available for the Women’s Rugby World Cup game (slightly different to the TRC and SR games but the same as the last Men’s RWC game). These are the Triple Captain (your chosen player will have her match score tripled), Super Kicker (will score double points for some kick related metrics) and Defensive Pro (will get double points for some defence related metrics). Each booster can be used once for the pool stage and once for the knockout stage of the tournament giving you the opportunity to play with boosters in every round (although you can’t play two boosters in the same round).
Being the official game it will no doubt be hugely popular with a big player pool, so you are definitely recommended to sign up!
THE KEY POINTS
- Site: https://play.world.rugby/fantasy
- Squad Size: 15
- Team size: 15
- Double scoring captain?: Yes, you can change it for each round of the tournament
- Designated Kicker?: No, although you can set a super kicker booster
- Transfers: Unlimited
- Max players from one team: 3 in the Pool Stage, 4 in the Quarter Finals, 5 for the Semis and 6 for the Final and Bronze match
THE EDGE
Choose your captain wisely
There are double points for a captain, so choose your skipper wisely. You can play it safe with a kicker, or consult the try-scoring stats to see if any player in particular is expected to fill their boots with tries.
Use your boosters strategically
Let’s dig into the “boosters” a bit deeper…
To recap, there are 3 boosters that are available that can all be played once in the Pool Stage and once in the Knockout stage. The boosters are…
- Triple Captain – Your captain will score you triple points for their next match.
- Super Kicker – The player you apply the Super Kicker booster to will score double points for the following kicking based scoring metrics in their next match (be aware that this will also double negative scores for missed kicks):
- Conversion scored
- Conversion missed
- Penalty scored
- Penalty missed
- Drop goal scored
- Drop goal missed
- Defensive Pro – The player you apply the Defensive Pro booster to will score double points for the following defensive based scoring metrics in their next match (be aware that this will also double negative scores for missed tackles):
- Each turnover forced
- Each interception
- Each tackle made
- Each tackle missed
Goes without saying that the Triple Captain should be someone you’d back to have a huge all round game, the Super Kicker someone who you expect to have a huge day with the boot, and the Defensive Pro needs to be a high performing turnover and tackle machine on a day where you think they will need to put in a big defensive shift.
With this in mind, for the Triple Captain, I’ll be targeting one of the biggest mismatches to try and have a player likely for a safe haul (I’m looking at Round 2 for this, potentially with someone like Ellie Kildunne v Samoa on the 30th August or Joanna Grisez v Brazil on the 31st August both come to mind). For the Super Kicker again I’ll be looking at a mismatch for a player likely to get many shots at the posts (More than likely in Round 1). For the Defensive Pro I’ll be looking at the indiviual defensive stats after the first two rounds to see any defensive outliers (I would say this metric is made for soemone like Evie Gallagher) and put it on them in Round 3.
Use your budget carefully
You have a budget of $100 for 15 players, which gives you $6.6 per player. Unsurprisingly the premium players with premium price tags, however, there are also potential bargains to be had, including the likes of Francesca McGhie, Chloe Rollie, Gabby Cantorna, Courtney Keight, Evie Gallagher, May Campbell, Georgia Ponsonby and Vittoria Vecchini all worth a look in, and should allow you to bring in some premium stars elsewhere.
Load up with kickers
There is no limit on the amount of kickers you can select and kicks are guaranteed points, so while you are restricted to one fly half, if there are kickers playing in other positions – Scrum Half (Kiera Bevan), Full Back (Morgane Bourgois) or even Second Row (Sophie De Goede) for example… – then sign them up.
Mismatches
The Rugby World Cup provides a rare opportunity for the lower ranked nations of the Rugby World to face up against the very top of the elite, and with this provides the prospect of some considerable mismatches and some large points hauls. The biggest mismatch on paper is on Sunday 31st August when the might of France (World Ranking #4) take on Brazil (World Ranking #25). In addition to this, there are several matchups with potential for some absolutely big points hauls and when a big side lines up against the likes of Spain, Fiji, Samoa and Brazil, then that is the time to load up.
Come and join the FRG league for the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup!
If you back your Fantasy Rugby skills to lead you to Women’s Rugby World Cup glory, then join our public fantasy league. To join, Sign up to the game here. Good luck!
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