Fantasy Rugby Games Overview – The Irish Times Rugby World Cup 2019 Fantasy Game

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The fourth of a series of game overviews to give you the ins and outs of the available games in place for the 2019 Rugby World Cup. If any new games pop up, please let us know at fantasyrugbygeek@gmail.com or @frugbygeek on Twitter. Next under the microscope is a game brought to us from The Irish Times, check it out here.

THE PREMISE

A salary cap style fantasy game, you have a budget of €100m to fill your team of 15 with players. You have no limit on players from any one country and 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 several transfers throughout the tournament (15 spread out over the course of the pool stage and 6 for the quarter finals, 6 for the semi finals and 3 for the final), and you can shift your captain around reguarly too (1 captain change in each of the 4 “rounds” of the pool stage and 3 in the knockout stage).

Another key point to note is the Rolling Lockout, 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 Japan or Russia 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).

It looks a like a good option for the casual player and some great prizes are on offer for the winners, including €3,000 for the first prize prize, €2,000 for the runner up and €1,000 for third place.

THE KEY POINTS

  • Site: https://www.fantasyrugby.irishtimes.com
  • Squad Size: 15
  • Team size: 15
  • Double scoring captain?: Yes, you can change it 4 times in the pool stage and 3 times in the knockout stage
  • Designated Kicker?: No
  • Transfers: 15 spread out over the course of the pool stage and 6 for the quarter finals, 6 for the semi finals and 3 for the final
  • Max players from one team: Unlimited

THE EDGE

Keep a close eye on the fixture calendar and plan ahead

As with a number of other games for the RWC, is worth noting that the matches are unevenly spread throughout the tournament, so there are opportunities to have one team potentially play twice in the same “Round”. Likewise, there are some weeks where certain teams will have “blanks”, drastically hindering your points potential. For The Irish Times, below are the doubles and blanks, take advantage of these where you can! The doubles in particular could be a great place to make your captain picks.

Double weeks…

  • Round 1 (20th-26th September) – England, Italy, Russia & Fiji
  • Round 2 (28th September-3rd October) – Ireland & Georgia
  • Round 3 (4th-9th October) – Argentina & South Africa
  • Round 4 (10th-13th October) – None

Blank weeks…

  • Round 1 (20th-26th September) – None
  • Round 2 (28th September-3rd October) – England & Italy
  • Round 3 (4th-9th October) – Ireland & Georgia
  • Round 4 (10th-13th October) – Russia, Fiji, Argentina & South Africa 

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 anytime tryscorer odds to see if any player in particular is expected to fill their boots with tries. The best strategy as mentioned above is to use them when teams are playing twice so that you have two opportunities to rack up points (just be wary of squad rotation).

Use your transfers strategically

You have 15 transfers  spread across the pool stage…

  • Round 1 (20th-26th September) – 3 transfers
  • Round 2 (28th September-3rd October) – 3 transfers
  • Round 3 (4th-9th October) – 3 transfers
  • Round 4 (10th-13th October) – 6 transfers

So use these transfers to load up for all the big mismatches, and make sure you get the kickers and likely tryscorers in for these games. Also use your transfers to ship out players with blank rounds. Most importantly though, wait until teams are announced before making transfers.

Use your budget carefully

You have a budget of €100m for 15 players, which gives you €6.6m per player. Unsurprisingly the premium players with premium price tags, however, there are also potential bargains to be had, including the likes of Minozzi, Josh Adams, Foley, Nicolas Sanchez, Reinach, Ryan Wilson, Polledri & Taufete’e, all worth a look in, and should allow you to bring in some premium stars.

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 and full back for example…) then sign them up.

Mismatches

The Rugby World Cup provides a rare opportunity for the minnows 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 the 6th October when the might of the All Blacks (World Ranking #1) take on Namibia (World Ranking #23). In addition to this, there are several matchups with potential for some absolutely huge points hauls and when a big side lines up against the likes of Uruguay, Russia, Namibia and Canada, then that is the time to load up.

 

Other Fantasy Rugby Games for Rugby World Cup

A summary of the top games that you can play fantasy rugby for the Rugby World Cup…

  • The Rugby Magazine – Stats rich salary cap style game – Check out our review here
  • PlayOn – Daily Fantasy for Rugby – Sign up today here to receive a free $22 entry with a first-time deposit – Check out a previous review here (Rugby World Cup review coming…).
  • SuperBru – An old favourite with salary cap fantasy rugby among other games and sports – Check out our review here.
  • The Daily Telegraph – Salary cap game with a £5000 top prize – Check out our review here.

Pre-tournament articles

In case you missed any of our other pre-World Cup articles, make sure you check out the following to help guide your pre-tournament preparations…

Get free tickets to The Rugby Show

The Rugby Show is a two-day gathering at the Ricoh Arena, home of Wasps, in July 2020. The Rugby Show already has a fantastic range of phenomenal speakers from across the professional game. The likes of Lawrence Dallaglio, Maggie Alphonsi, current England World Cup duo, Joe Marler and George Kruis and World Cup winner Sarah Hunter will be talking about their own experiences, about coping with injury, maintaining fitness, nutrition, providing demonstrations on how to improve your skills as a player and more. The line-up also includes recent MMA convert James Haskell, Premiership regulars Jimmy Gopperth and Tommy Taylor to name a few.

Registration has now gone live and as an ambassador of the Rugby Show, Fantasy Rugby Geek is offering you FREE ENTRY to the event (which usually costs £15 for an adult ticket). Click this link https://the-rugby-show-2020.reg.buzz/fantasy-rugby-geek and enter the following code TRS20GRASSROOTS to book your FREE tickets now!

Looking for more Fantasy Rugby insight and Resources?

New for the 2019/20 season, we are proud to present the The Fantasy Rugby Handbook. 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 just £3.99 on Gumroad as a PDF and on Amazon in Kindle format (Free on Kindle Unlimited) – 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 the 2019 Rugby World Cup 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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If you back your Fantasy Rugby skills to lead you to Fantasy Rugby World Cup 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 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!

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