Our latest instalment of our weekly pre-match updates where we analyse the weekend’s lineups, crunch the stats and see what the bookies are thinking to help you optimise your lineups for peak performance this weekend! By the time you finish this article you should have all the insight you need to score big fantasy points this weekend.
Make sure you come back every weekend before finalising your lineups!
Potential mismatches
While the season is over for Fantasy Rugby Draft players, for players of The Rugby Magazine, there is a long way to go with the game running all the way to the Final. The Rugby Magazine also announced this week that from the playoffs you will be able to completely rebuild your squad, so if you have accumulated lots of players that you haven’t wanted to incur penalty points for releasing, next week will be the opportunity to cash in (Read here for more details…). Being the last week of the regular season, there are a lot of dead rubbers, which makes it very hard to call, so tread carefully this weekend. The expected results from the bookies are as follows…
- Sale to beat Gloucester by 8 points
- Exeter to beat Northampton by 6 points
- Bath to beat Leicester by 6 points
- Saracens to beat Worcester by 5 points
- Wasps to beat Harlequins by 3 points
- Bristol to beat Newcastle by 2 points
Expected to go well
*Players who are starting favourably out of position (i.e. Hooker in back row, Centre on wing, etc.)
Recommended captain pick in bold
Please note that these picks have been published before lineups were announced, so some of these picks may not be playing. Please double check the starting XV before you commit to your teams, or check back here at 1pm BST.
FRONT ROW
- Ross Harrison (Sale)
- Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins)
- John Afoa (Bristol)
- Dan Cole (Leicester)
- Harry Thacker (Bristol)
- Rob Webber (Sale)
- Jack Yeandle (Exeter)
LOCKS
- Calum Green (Newcastle)
- Courtney Lawes (Northampton)
- Chris Vui (Bristol)
- James Phillips (Sale)
BACK ROW
- Zach Mercer (Bath)
- Jono Ross (Sale)
- Matt Kvesic (Exeter)
- Josh Beaumont (Sale)
- Jake Polledri (Gloucester)
- Nizaam Carr (Wasps)
SCRUM-HALF
- Cobus Reinach (Northampton)
- Faf De Klerk (Sale)
- Francois Hougaard (Worcester)
FLY HALF
- AJ MacGinty (Sale)
- George Ford (Leicester)
- Duncan Weir (Worcester)
CENTRES
- Sam James (Sale)
- Joe Marchant (Harlequins)
- Nick Tompkins (Saracens)
- Alapati Leiua (Bristol)
- Ollie Devoto (Exeter)
OUTSIDE BACKS
- Charles Piutau (Bristol)
- Tom Collins (Northampton)
- Taqele Naiyaravoro (Northampton)
- Denny Solomona (Sale)
- Mike Brown (Harlequins)
- Josh Adams (Worcester)
Premiership Rugby Injury News
Gaining reliable Injury news for the Premiership is extremely difficult, and while we don’t have a database of the latest injuries at Fantasy Rugby Geek, we would highly recommend The Rugby Magazine’s injuries page which remains the most exhaustive source of Premiership injury news that can be found. Details of this and many other useful Fantasy Rugby resources can be found at our Resources page.
Looking for more Fantasy Rugby insight and Resources?
New for the 2018/19 season, we are proud to present the The Fantasy Rugby Geek Guide to Fantasy Rugby. An exhaustive collection of wisdom and experience gained from over a decade of fantasy rugby playing. Primarily aimed at less experienced players but with enough nuggets of wisdom and insight for even the most grizzled fantasy rugby veteran. There is something here for all players. The eBook is available to download now for £3.99 on Gumroad as a PDF and on Amazon in Kindle format – check it out!
If you want some more sources to help you finalise your decisions, go to our resources page where you’ll find all this year’s Gallagher Premiership fantasy games, all the stats sources, injury news, team news, fantasy relevant rugby betting odds and tons of other useful information.
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