Welcome to Day 13 of FRG’s Fantasy Rugby World Cup Diary! 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…
Match Day 12 Review
Two games today…
First up was Georgia v Fiji in Higashiosaka City, and saw Fiji bounce back off their surprise defeat to Uruguay to take apart Georgia in an impressive second half peformance. The outstanding performer was Semi Radradra with 2 tries, 3 assists, 177m carried and 5 clean breaks, but there were also impressive performances from Waisea Nayacalevu, Frank Lomani, Josua Tuisova, Semi Kunatani and Api Ratuniyarawa and it was great to also see the legendary Mamuka Gorgodze get on the scoresheet.
Second up, Ireland v Russia was not quite the bloodbath many were expecting, with Ireland emerging with a 35-0 victory. The high scorers were the tryscorers, Rob Kearney, Peter O’Mahony, Rhys Ruddock, Andrew Conway and Garry Ringrose. Tadhg Beirne also scored well on The Rugby Magazine
Match Day 13 Preview
Just the one game on Friday with South Africa taking on Italy. Italy have had it straightforward so far with convincing wins against Canada and Namibia so far, but things are about to take a step up with South Africa and New Zealand back-to-back. The bookies are giving South Africa a 29 point handicap line, and so all focus will be on the likes of Cheslin Kolbe, Makazole Mapimpi, Bongi Mbonambi and Duane Vermeulen to rack up some good points. Also keep an eye out for the explosive Jake Polledri, who always contributes big points no matter who he plays against.
FRG’s Teams
The Rugby Magazine – Points: 1154 – Ranking: 169
Disaster! Joey Carbery dropped out late, which resulted in Conor Murray coming on to the Ireland bench. This removed my auto-subbed Gareth Davies and his 46 points from my starting lineup to the bench. Adding insult to injury, Murray didn’t even get a second of action on the field, rewarding me with the princely sum of 1 point. In all today I had some small points contributions, Nakarawa (21 points), Tuisova (19 points), Furlong (1 point) and Murray (1 point).
Tomorrow I have two players, Kolbe and Marx (who will start the game on the bench). A lot of hope resting on Kolbe!
SuperBru – Points: 608.50 – Ranking: 369
A solid day, with good scores from Garry Ringrose and Captain Conway as well as good contributions from Beirne and Nakarawa. I have 3 players in action tomorrow with Cheslin Kolbe, Makazole Mapimpi and Simone Ferrari.
The Daily Telegraph – Points: 973 – Ranking: 91
A solid day and I now find myself in the Top 100 for the first time in the tournament. Today I had some good scorers in Andrew Conway (C) and Garry Ringrose, as well as some small points contributions from CJ Stander, Leone Nakarawa and Tadhg Furlong.
With 15 transfers left I’m likely to only make one change tomorrow, bringing in Cheslin Kolbe. I’ll also be keeping a very close eye on the All Blacks team announcement for Namibia.
The Irish Times – Points: 781 – Ranking: 11
Unbelievably considering I’ve been bouncing around the 1,000-4,000 mark all tournament (including yesterday!), I now find myself in ELEVENTH place! All down to a fantastic day of scoring split between Tadhg Furlong (27 points for the Round), Leone Nakarawa (19 points), Semi Radradra (76 points), Josua Tuisova (39 points), Garry Ringrose (63 points for the round) and Keith Earls (59 points for the round – with captain points doubled to 118). Despite having 2 players not playing in this round (Marx and Reece), my team was the highest scoring in the game this round.
A new round starts tomorrow so I will make my next changes tomorrow morning when the teams are known as far ahead as possible
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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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