Welcome to Day 24 and the final FRG Fantasy Rugby World Cup Diary of the pool stage! A daily post during the World Cup in which I will be previewing the upcoming games, looking back at the previous matches and sharing the progress, trials and tribulations of all my teams across the 4 games live for the World Cup. This will be the last post for a few days but I’ll be back again on Thursday with the Quarter-Final picks and then the Diary posts will start again on Friday (along with the Premiership Round 1 picks!)…
Match Day 20 Review
An exhilarating final day of the pool stage, and although there were only three games played after the cancellation of Namibia v Canada, there was plenty of action to see out the Pool stage in style.
First up in Higashiosaka City, the United States closed off a disappointing World Cup with a defeat to Tonga. The outstanding performers included Mike Te’o with two tries, the electric Telusa Veainu who scored, carried for 157m and beat 11 defenders and tryscorers Siegfried Fisiihoi, Malietoa Hingano, Tony Lamborn and Siale Piutau.
Second up was a Wales side who flattered to deceive against Uruguay. In the end, they ran out victors 35-13, but it was hardly a vintage performance. Top performers from a fantasy perpective were Josh Adams, Leigh Halfpenny, German Kessler and Gareth Davies.
Finally the much anticipated match between Japan and Scotland lived up to its pre-match billing with an epic tussle that saw Japan leave 28-21 victors. Star of the show was undoubtable Kenki Fukuoka with two tries, one assist, 110m carried and 7 defenders beaten. In addition Kotaro Matsushima continued his great World Cup form with a try to his name and Keita Inagaki, Finn Russell, WP Nel and Zander Fagerson all got onto the scoresheet.
FRG’s Teams – End of Pool Stage summary…
The Rugby Magazine – Points: 2203 – Ranking: 47
Got to be happy to end the Pool Stage in the Top 50, my team’s definitely had highs and lows, but now with carte blanche in terms of transfers I’m looking forward to loading the team up for the knockout stages. Given the leaders have a good 200 points more than me, getting top spot might be a bit of a reach, but I’d be very happy to get up to the Top 25 by the end of the tournament…
SuperBru – Points: 962 – Ranking: 145
Cracking the Top 200 (in a game with over 60k players!), I couldn’t be happier. I’ve progressed this far not without a considerable piece of luck in having only two players affected by the cancellations in Round 4. Now for some careful planning ahead of the knockout stage and to ship out the eliminated players with my 8 transfers…
The Daily Telegraph – Points: 1649 – Ranking: 22
My team ended the Pool stage in 22nd place, happy with that, although the gap of 165 off the leader may well be too much to claw back with the remaining 8 matches. Realistically I need to pull back 100 or so points next weekend which will be incredibly difficult and will require some ballsy differential moves, which is something I’ll have a think about during the week…
The Irish Times – Points: 1431 – Ranking: 11
I think this is my best shot of winning a game for the RWC. Up to 11th place and 77 points off the lead, it is wide open. I’m delighted at how well I’ve done in tis game considering I was struggling to get into the top 5,000 after Round 2. With only 6 changes between the pool stage and the knockout stage, some serious thought is going to need to go into my strategy for the knockout stage.
So that’s the pool stage done! How did your teams get on? Let me know! Just a quick reminder that all games have differing transfer rules between the pool stage and the knockout stage so here’s a quick summary…
The Daily Telegraph
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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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