Inside the Games: With Bruce Wilkinson talking Fantasy Rugby Draft

Fantasy Rugby Geekon

If you are reading this blog you are probably a fan of Fantasy Rugby. While Fantasy NFL and Fantasy Football are long part of the sporting mainstream, Fantasy Rugby is still growing and growing, and gaining exposure as part of the worldwide growth of the sport. The number of fantasy rugby games on the market are growing and the Rugby fan has never been better catered for top quality fantasy games. So in the latest of a series of interviews with the individuals behind the games, we catch up with Bruce Wilkinson, founder of Fantasy Rugby Draft, to talk Fantasy Rugby, the upcoming Super Rugby Season, the new Six Nations game, the recent Friday issues and much more…

FRG: So Super Rugby is coming back, but not as we know it. Can you give us an overview of how FRD will be tackling the format of the game combining Super Rugby Aoteoroa, Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Trans-Tasman?

BW: We’re bringing all three competitions together in a super Super Rugby competition if you will. We’re gutted there is no South African involvement. We loved what their FRD managers brought to our community. Thankfully though we’ve seen a very positive response from South African managers still wanting to play, despite no teams playing. They need their FRD fix! As to the format, we’ve included some very tricky Gameweeks where there will be only 4 teams playing. We could have skipped these however the overriding feedback from our managers was more fantasy is better than less, and this adds a whole extra layer of strategy. Winning a Fantasy Rugby Draft championship is the test of the best and the managers that win will have negotiated these wrinkles the best.

FRG: Any bold Predictions for the 2021 Super Rugby season?

BW: Bold predictions? I’d love to predict that the Crusaders won’t win everything again but I’m not that bold…. plus there’s a lot of their paraphernalia floating round my house. Zarn Sullivan will take over at fullback from Perofranchise at the Blues by the end of the season. Jordan Petaia will stay healthy all season? Both of these are bold so please don’t base your draft strategy on them…

FRG: Which players do you think could be good Sleeper picks in 2021?

BW: I consider a sleeper someone we rank outside the Top 100 (see Manager PRO rankings) that could make a significant impact to your title chances. I’ll ignore injured players like Ennor or Bridge, that’s cheating. I’ll also ignore the ‘if this player gets injured then x will star’ answer. Emoni Narawa (see bold predictions, the Blues 15 position is up for grabs) and Dallas Mcleod could push their way into starting lineups and bring you decent FRD pts.

FRG: Moving North, many are very excited about FRD going live for the Six Nations. Obviously the format for the Six Nations is very different compared to the usual competitions on FRD. How’s it going to work?

BW: We tossed lots of different ideas about whilst at the same time trying to be consistent and true to our product. What we landed on was 6 team leagues where you can link leagues (if there are a number of you competing against each other). All linked leagues managers will be able to be view each League Table to be able to track how everyone is progressing and not just the 6 teams in your league.

FRG: For any new managers who may be coming on board for the Six Nations, to help give players an edge, you have Manager Pro. What do players get with Manager Pro?

BW: The two primary reasons managers purchase Manager PRO is to get much more accurate pre-draft rankings and team news. If you don’t purchase Manager PRO you are relying on the default rankings which is purely based on last seasons total points. A good example is Richie Mo-unga. Ranked #59 in our default rankings because he had a slow start to 2020 and had his minutes capped. Without giving too much away he’s a little higher than #59 in our Manager PRO rankings.

Super important to get PRO if you don’t think you’ll be at your draft. Team news allows you to cut out all the research on Twitter or team websites etc. It’s a huge time saver. Especially when you are researching players. The ability to filter by ‘Starting’ ultimately it will give you years back on your life.

There’s a bunch of other value add stats to help you along the way including Ave Points Per Game, Ave Points Per Minute, FORM (an algorithm to help you research players in season, to decide who is in a hot vein of form).

Lastly, we introduced the Kickoff Blitz for all our competitions as well. It’s our version of Daily Fantasy (DFS). Each Manager PRO subscriber gets a free roll in the tournament. Draft your team and win your matchup to progress to the next gameweek where you draft a brand new team. More drafting (who doesn’t love more drafting?) plus a chance at winning the big bucks prize of $100 if you come out on top of the Super Rugby Kickoff Blitz Tournament!

FRG: There have been some bumpy moments on FRD this season around the lineup announcement time for the Premiership game. Do you know what has caused these issues and have you got any plans to investigate these issues with the hosting provider to make the lineup announcement time period a bit smoother for FRD players?

BW: This has been a source of frustration for us as well as FRD managers. We’re gutted that these issues have occurred. Yes, we have been investigating better ways to approach the huge and sudden ramp up in traffic around team naming in the north and we believe we have an answer with regards to how AWS manages this. We have also made a change in our code that should help make a difference. Ultimately though we’ve let managers down and we want to sincerely apologise and thank them for their patience as we try and work through it.

FRG: Finally, with the likes of the Sharks, Stormers, Lions and Bulls joining the “Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Italian and South African Pro Competition” for 2021, are there any plans to resurrect the FRD game for this league?

BW: We’ll look into it for sure. There’s a significant cost both in time and money, into launching a new season so we’ll need to weigh all these up. On top of this and without getting into too much detail, the red carpet wasn’t exactly rolled out for us by the league organisers last time…

FRG: Final word, do you think any team can get past the Crusaders this year for the Super Rugby Trans-Tasman title?

BW: No!

A big thanks to Bruce for doing the interview and being a good sport with the questions. You can play Fantasy Rugby Draft here, learn about the Super Rugby Game here, the Six Nations Game here, and follow Fantasy Rugby Draft on Twitter here.

Fantasy Rugby Games for the 2021 Six Nations

A summary of the top games that you can play fantasy rugby for the 2021 Six Nations…

Pre-tournament articles

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

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If you want some more sources to help you finalise your decisions, go to our resources page where you’ll find all the 2021 Six Nations 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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