Welcome back! With Harlequins’ incredible run to Premiership glory and the tempestuous Lions tour of South Africa in the rear view mirror, it’s time to start looking ahead. An exciting new season lies ahead with the exhilirating prospect of packed Premiership stadiums. Throughout the pre-season period, keep an eye on FantasyRugbyGeek.com for previews and pre-season overviews of the Premiership games and pre-season tips.
This season brings a new wrinkle to Prmiership fantasy rugby players, byes! While Super Rugby fantasy rugby players are well used to bye weeks, this is a new experience for Premiership managers. With no relegation last season and the return of Saracens increasing the league to 13 teams, this season, we are going to contend with byes.
So when are the bye weeks occuring? Here’s a summary…
A few points to note…
The teams with longest gaps between bye weeks are Wasps (18 rounds), Harlequins (18 rounds) & Saracens (16 rounds), while the teams with shortest gaps between bye weeks, Bristol (8 rounds), Newcastle (9 rounds) and Gloucester (9 weeks). Take this into account with your planning if you are looking to shift players in and out for the byes.
The full list of gaps between byes is below…
- Bristol (8 rounds – 6 & 14)
- Northampton (10 rounds – 5 & 15)
- Newcastle (9 rounds – 7 & 16)
- Gloucester (9 rounds – 8 & 17)
- Saracens (16 rounds – 2 & 18)
- Wasps (18 rounds – 1 & 19)
- Bath (16 rounds – 4 & 20)
- Harlequins (18 rounds – 3 & 21)
- Leicester (13 rounds – 9 & 22)
- Sale (13 rounds – 10 & 23)
- Exeter (13 rounds – 11 & 24)
- Worcester (13 rounds – 12 & 25)
- London Irish (13 rounds – 13 & 26)
Another point to be considerate of are the teams with byes during the FRD Play-offs & Finals (assuming the play-offs are the last weeks of the regular season), these are Exeter (R24), Worcester (R25) and London Irish (R26). Exeter in R24 could certainly cause some headaches for some of the top managers.
Ultimately, with 13 teams in the league and only 1 team on a bye each week, it should all be quite manageable; however, just avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, and be cautious with any handcuff strategies (“Handcuff??? What?” – Check out our Fantasy Rugby Glossary here…). Good luck!
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.
Come and join the 21/22 FRG league!
If you back your Fantasy Rugby skills to lead you to Fantasy Premiership glory and win you some stash while you are at it, then join our public fantasy league on The Rugby Magazine fantasy game, where a Fantasy Rugby Geek Trucker Hat, and a signed paperback copy of the Fantasy Rugby Handbook will be on offer for the winner of the league. To join, Sign up to the game here & go to Leaderboards > Public Leagues and join “Fantasy Rugby Geek”. Good luck!
A huge congratulations to our 20/21 Champion, James Froud!
Buy me a Coffee!
If you’ve been enjoying the FRG tips over the years, please consider supporting the blog and donating a coffee, all donators will receive a name drop on the next weekly tips, and your donations will help with the running of the blog (and keeping me fuelled to do so!) >>> https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FRugbyGeek
Buy me a coffee