This week we heard the great news that after several years with no Draft fantasy game for Premiership and URC, a new game, Draft XV, has been launched and will be in place for the 2025/26 Premiership and URC seasons. What is Draft XV, and Draft fantasy in general? This post will hopefully answer a few of those questions!
THE PREMISE
As announced on the Eggchasers Podcast on Monday and on Tim Cocker’s (one of the inviduals behind the game) excellent YouTube channel on Tuesday in the below announcement video….
Digging into it, DraftXV is a draft style Fantasy Rugby game. Fantasy Draft rugby is quite different to traditional salary cap style fantasy rugby as you know it. The key aspects of it are:
- You are competing in a private league, not against the rest of the world (Leagues can be a minimum of 4 players and a maximum of 12 players).
- You draft your squad over 18 rounds
- Unlike in salary cap style games, there is only one player per league (i.e. only one team can have Finn Russell)
- You can change your squad via trades, the waiver wire and free agents
- Each week you go head to head vs another team in your league, the winner of this matchup picks up the win in the league table, the top 4 in each league then faces off in a set of knock-out play-off phases
But the best part of the experience, and you’ll know this if you’ve played before, is drafting (and if you want to know what to expect on Draft Day, have a read here!). One-by-one in order (as a result of a random draw), the managers pick the players that make up their team. In order to keep things fair, at the end of each round the order of picks is reversed (so if you picked the first player in Round 1, then you’ll get last pick in Round 2). The draft usually goes on for a couple of hours and is always a great laugh.
Honestly there is nothing in Fantasy sport that compares to the pressure and competition than being inside an engaged draft league. You can throw in extra curveballs like forfeits for those who win the Sacko* (*coming dead last) or you can even introduce bespoke rules, like the infamous Pink Slips league.
Draft XV is available as a website but also with Android and iOS apps, which will be hugely helpful to track your team on the go or if you need to put in your waiver claims when away from your computer.
In terms of scoring, the full scoring breakdown can be found here, but big points are available for tries (5 points), assists (4 points), metres carried (1 point per 10 metres) and line breaks (3 points). Kicking is well rewarded too. Watch out for Yellow Cards (-7 points) and Red Cards (-15 points) though.
I was lucky enough to be a part of the Beta testing process and it’s a brilliant game and well worth you pulling together with your mates to put a league out. If you are looking for a league to join, I’d highly recommend you joining the Fantasy Rugby Discord, as there are people looking for leagues there or message me on X and I’ll try to unite you with leagues looking for players…
BTW if you’re itching to get that first draft in on @DraftXVRugby and want to join a league or if you’ve set up a league and need players, just tweet me (x me?) and I’ll try to unite you. pic.twitter.com/irccvCxcBF
— Fantasy Rugby Geek (@FRugbyGeek) August 18, 2025
THE KEY POINTS
- Squad Size: 18
- Team size: 12 (3 x Outside Backs, 2 x Midfielders, 1 x Fly-half, 1 x Scrum-half, 2 x Loose Forward, 1 x Lock, 1 x Hooker & 1 x Prop)
- Double scoring captain?: No
- Designated Kicker?: No, you can have unlimited kickers
- Transfers: Unlimited transfers (but only if the players you want are free agents or you have agreed a trade)
- Max players from one club: Unlimited
THE EDGE
Kickers not categorised as fly-halves
Often fantasy games force you to select one kicker to gain points from conversions, penalties, drop goals etc. Not here, so if you can find kickers who play outside of the fly-half position then they are well worth picking up, as they are guaranteed points.
Friday Midday Madness
If you are at work on Friday you might want to schedule your lunch break on the dot of midday UK Time, this is when the weekend lineups are announced and when managers swamp the site to see who in their team is playing and if there are gaps, then the pool of free agents gets ravaged as managers look to put in their waiver claims for the best possible starters from the remaining players. Get this right and it will pay off big time. Keep an eye on the team announcements on the Fantasy Rugby Geek Premiership X List and the Fantasy Rugby Geek URC X List to catch the team announcements as they come in.
Be Prepared
Come prepared and organised to your league’s draft (but be ready to change your strategy depending on how the draft is panning out – if all the fly half options are flying off the board, get in there before they all go). Also avoid putting all your eggs in one basket with the same team as you will get burned on the bye weeks. Also tread carefully in picking up international players in the early rounds and also keep track of injured players.
To get an idea of what to expect from the Draft, I livestreamed a draft where you can view all the functionality and see how I go about the draft process…
Depth aka VORP
Identify the relative depth at every position (You need to understand every player’s value relative to every other player and the depth of that position as it relates to your squad needs). There could be 20+ great options at Outside Back but only 3-4 genuine points scoring options at Half Back, so adjust your strategy accordingly.
Rankings
Use the player rankings flexibly and in context (Whether they are your own, someone else’s, an average of multiple people or even just the default ones in the draft room), when you draft you are going to have a set of rankings. They are certainly helpful, but they should be used only as a guideline, and more so in the early parts of the draft. Once you get your first six or seven players, it really becomes about squad construction based on what positions you need to fill, how much risk you’ve already taken and how the draft is playing out.
Analyse the lower ranks
Quite often there are many great options sitting down in the lower ranks of the overall rankings. New signings, previous top picks recovering from injuries or deep sleepers set for a breakout season. Don’t draft without sifting around the lower ranks to find some golden nuggets.
Waiver wire
Keep a close eye on the waiver wire throughout the season. There are always absolute bargains that can appear here. Make sure you check out the upcoming matches for the weekend at the start of the week and scour the waiver wire for potential signings with a good fixture at the weekend.
Out of position players
Players who are categorised in certain positions, but mostly play in others can be great value. Outside backs who generally have a high probability of scoring tries, beating players, breaking the line and carrying for metres are traditionally the highest scorers, so if you can find an Outside Back categorised as a Centre, then load up! Likewise this works well if you can find a Loose Forward categorised as a lock.
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