The Premiership is on its way back and with it comes the welcome return of Fantasy Rugby! The team at The Rugby Magazine have been working hard during lockdown, and the Premiership game is now open and ready for you to tinker away ahead of next Friday’s restart.
They will be including all gameweeks in the competition, even those through the middle of the week. They have also announced that to allow your squad to manage the sweeping changes to lineups throughout the league through this period, they have increased the gameweek transfers to 15 for the restarting round (14), all of which are free.
Further to this, and given the expected substantial changes week on week due to the increased workload of the players, they have increased the number of free transfers to 2 for each gameweek in the remainder of the regular season. The max still remains at 5, but hopefully the extra room will allow for a smooth finish.
With so many new transfers to potentially bring in, are there any potential bargains to be had amongst the new arrivals? FRG has cast the net across the depths of the player list to identify 10 new arrivals to keep an eye on.
Read on to bolster your team with some exciting new faces…
Semi Radradra – Bristol Bears – TRM Position: CE, WG – TRM Price: £275k
At just £275k, Radradra is an absolute no brainer to add to your team. At that price he is a complete bargain and with many other fantasy players likely to snap him up, that price will surely go up. Radradra was a genuine star of the 2019 Rugby World Cup and is the complete attacking threat. With Radradra you can guarantee metre points, clean breaks, defenders beaten, assists and tries (just a reminder of his performance against Georgia in the RWC pool stage… 2 tries, 3 assists, 2 offloads, 178 metres carried, 6 clean breaks, 11 defenders beaten). An absolute beast, he will be the Fantasy Rugby gift that will keep on giving…
Andre Esterhuizen – Harlequins – TRM Position: CE, FB – TRM Price: £180k
Another new addition that seems to be great value is Harlequins’ incoming Springbok, Andre Esterhuizen. Esterhuizen is a great talent with a good eye for the tryline, and who can carry hard but also provide creativity and attacking flair. A consistent performer in Super Rugby for many years, he should adapt very quickly to the the Premiership. At just £180k, Andre “The Giant” is well worth the investment.
Tyrone Green – Halequins – TRM Position: WG, FB – TRM Price: £157k
One of the more exciting signings taking place over the hiatus was Tyrone Green to Harlequins. For those unfamiliar with Green, he can play across the backline with unreal pace, a lethal step and real flair. He has shown great promise in his early career in Super Rugby, and Lions’ loss is most definitely Quins’ gain. If he can deliver on that promise in the Premiership, then at £157k, he is an absolute steal. With the departures from Quins of Ibitoye, Goneva and Travis Ismaiel, some spots have opened up to allow him to make an immediate impact.
Nemani Nadolo – Leicester Tigers – TRM Position: CE, WG – TRM Price: £365k
The big man has arrived, playing in the Premiership for the first time for the Tigers, we welcome Nemani Nadolo. We all know what Nadolo brings; huge carries, a wake of defenders behind him, plenty of tries and the odd place kick here and there. Now 32, he should still have a few years inside of him to make a big impact on the Prem. At £365k He’s less of a bargain compared to some of the other players on this list, but he is versatile (Assigned as a Centre and Winger) and if he is a regular starter and gets quality ball he will always be guaranteed to make an impact.
Jonny Gray – Exeter Chiefs – TRM Position: LK – TRM Price: £320K
In The Rugby Magazine’s scoring structure, there are few more reliable sources of points than an all-action Lock. Jonny Gray is the very definition of an all-action Lock. A hard carrier, effective in the lineout, and a truly legendary tackler, breaking all kinds of records with an absolutely ludicrous workrate and unbelievable tackle success rate. He should flourish in the Exeter pack and should easily repay the £320k investment.
99% – Of players to make 100+ tackles in the @PRO14Official in the 2010s Jonny Gray recorded the best tackle success rate (99%), missing just 13 of 1006 attempted tackles, including 170 tackles without a single miss in 2019. Chief. pic.twitter.com/1rz5J9cDEY
— OptaJonny (@OptaJonny) January 3, 2020
Josh Hodge – Exeter Chiefs – TRM Position: WG, FB – TRM Price: £153K
A previous star of the England U20’s, Exeter have made an extremely astute signing in the form of the prodigious Josh Hodge. Described by Rob Baxter as “…a good goalkicker, genuine pace, a talented ball player and someone who looks like he has lots of physical development still in him… ….we see him as being that ideal fit in the back three for where we are at this moment in time. He can play full-back or wing, which is great”. He should be a reliable option when the likes of Stuart Hogg and Jack Nowell are away on international duty and at £153k is a good value addition to bulk out Rugby Mag squads.
Matt Scott – Leicester Tigers – TRM Position: FH, CE – TRM Price: £213k
Matt Scott is returning to the Premiership after a successful stint in Edinburgh. A consistently high scoring Midfielder in the Pro14 and previously in the Prem at Gloucester, the Scottish international should slot straight in to a much changed Tigers backline. A strong and rapid attacking option in the Centres, Scott regularly breaks the line and beats defenders and so should provide plenty of returns to those who add him to their team, and at £213k he definitely brings plenty of value.
Matias Alemanno – Gloucester – TRM Position: LK – TRM Price: £225K
Another lock who can provide big value is Argentina international Matias Alemanno. Arriving at a Gloucester side who have lost a number of second row talents in Franco Mostert and Gerbrandt Grobler, he should slot straight in and make a big impact. An effective lineout option and a hard carrier, he should be a consistent and reliable Rugby Mag points scorer.
Ratu Naulago – Bristol Bears – TRM Position: WG – TRM Price: £249k
How to make a ludicrously exciting backline into an even more exciting prospect? Bristol have just done it. One of the most intriguing signings of the summer is Ratu Naulago. Converting from Rugby League, Naulago has been scoring tries for fun in the Super League and is expected to make a succesful transition to Union. The “Tank on the Flank” is a clinical finisher with unbelivable pace and a lethal step (just check out the end to end try at 00:41 in this compilation). If he gets game time and gets in the right position, we can expect fireworks!
Kobus van Wyk – Leicester Tigers – TRM Position: CE, WG – TRM Price: £190k
Leicester have been extremely busy in the off-season, with many comings and goings. While some of those departures will undoubtably hurt Tigers, they have also recruited shrewdly. Kobus van Wyk was one of the more eye-opening signings made over the summer. A rapid and prolific try-scorer on the wing, he has been in scintillating form in Super Rugby since arriving at the Hurricanes, bagging 4 tries in 3 games in the curtailed Super Rugby season and adding a further 3 tries in Super Rugby Aotearoa. There are some big shoes to fill on the wing at Tigers after the departure of Jonny May, and Van Wyk, in hot form, could be the man to step up and with a verstile position assignment and under 200k, he is a very worthwhile gamble.
Other new arrivals worth keeping an eye on…
- Wilco Louw – HAR – PR – £269K
- Cyle Brink – LEI – FL – £193k
- Kini Murimurivalu – LEI – WG, FB – £182K
- Juan Schoeman – BAT – PR – £182k
- Sam Hidalgo-Clyne – EXE – SH – £206K
- Blake Enever – LEI – LK – £203K
So there you have it, hopefully you now have the insights you need to ensure that when the season gets back up and running, you’ll be one step ahead of the rivals in your TRM Mini League!
The FRG Book Club
As well as being a Fantasy Rugby Geek, I am also an unapologetic book geek. I’ve got through a scary amount of books during lockdown and one rugby book in particular hit the spot that I want to share with you all.
Fringes by Ben Mercer by description alone should not be an exceptional read. Telling the story of a journeyman professional on one of the lower rungs of the French league pyramid hardly sounds like an inspiring read, yet it has over the last year consistently outsold autobiographies by the likes of Eddie Jones, Sam Warburton, Warren Gatland, Rory Best and Richie McCaw. It has been featured in The Guardian, BBC and Rugby Pass, and has lodged itself to the top of the Rugby book charts on Amazon for the last few months. And for good reason.
This is an exceptionally well written and insightful tale, unflinching in it’s honesty. At times downright brutal and other times eyewateringly hilarious. There are few more comprehesive overviews of what it is like in the modern game for the vast majority of professionals outside of the elite echelons of the pro game.
Ben Mercer is a former professional rugby player who after becoming disillusioned and uninspired plying his trade in the English Second Division, accepted an offer out of the blue to go to France and do something different – help an amateur team turn professional. Fringes is a first hand account of what life is like in the lower reaches of professional sport – where your employment status is as precarious as your health and barely anyone will know your name.
It’s about how it feels to live year to year, with teammates constantly on the move. It’s about how professionalism irreversibly changes the French club Stade Rouennais as they move up the divisions, about the tension between progress and identity in a rugby team. It’s also about how it feels to actually be out there on the field, how it feels to occasionally do something extraordinary and how it feels when this is no longer enough for you to make the sacrifices that you need to make to keep playing.
If you’ve wanted to know what life is really like as a professional athlete, on the Fringes, away from the glitz and glamour of the international game then look no further.
Fringes is available here on Amazon and in most online booksellers. Don’t miss out, insights on the game don’t come much more incisive and raw.
I will periodically share any other Rugby Books that I feel worth sharing with you all, but in the meantime if you would like to check out some of my other favourite Rugby Books, please check out my Top 5 Rugby Books here (which was published before I read Fringes!).
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