With England coming to town we all can’t wait for Sunday, but what does the weekend have in store as far as Fantasy Rugby is concerned? We weigh up the options available to managers ahead of Round Two.
Anyone who even caught a glimpse of all three Six Nations matches last weekend doesn’t need reminding of what a brilliant opening round it was, but if there was any trace of doubt, the stats are there to back it up.
There was an average of over five tries scored per game (16 in total), an average of just under 50 points per game (149 in total) and 760 tackles made over the three games, including a whopping 200 by Ireland. So it was 100 miles per hour, action packed and pretty much everything you’d want from a tournament that has its own unique appeal in the rugby world.
We’ve already discussed the main movers and shakers in The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League in our review of Round One, but can Round Two live up to the hype? Tired and sore bodies and changes in personnel and approach are bound to have an effect, but we see no reason why it can’t.
Ireland v England is the big one as far as we’re, and probably the tournament, is concerned but there’s arguably greater scoring potential in the two games that precede it on Saturday.
For a while against England, Scotland looked pretty competitive before being blown away, but they’ll know that if they don’t win on home turf against Italy, they might as well pull their collective pants down and await the blast of the wooden spoon down the road.
As far as points-scoring potential for Scott Johnson’s men, Stuart Hogg looked very dangerous from full-back and the manner in which he took his try suggests that adopted Kiwi Sean Maitland will score more as the tournament progresses. Greig Laidlaw did pretty well to come out of the game with eight points after an assist and three kicks, while Richie Gray was prominent and as Ireland know well, he’s more than capable of finishing when in touching distance of the try-line.
Pretty much everyone has Sergio Parisse in their team so there’s no need to wax lyrical about the brilliance of the number eight, but a man who may have took some casual observers by surprise is Luciano Orquera, who scored 17 points after a man of the match performance that had a mix of everything.
The Scotland v Italy clash will probably attract the least attention this weekend, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being responsible for the most points and Fantasy managers should think twice before ignoring it completely.
The one word that comes to mind in terms of France v Wales is ‘backlash’. We Irish know well what it’s liked to be tagged with lazy stereotypes, so needless to say the French support will be spitting wine, throwing stinky cheese and waving their baguettes in anger if there’s a repeat performance in Paris this weekend.
We expect a big performance from the French captain this weekend
Thierry Dusatoir is back in as captain in the absence of Pascal Pape and we wouldn’t bet against an inspirational, man of the match display from the Toulouse back row. Wesley Fofana failed to deliver the goods for the large percentage of managers who had selected him last weekend, but his record this season is close to one in two so keep the faith.
For Wales, Justin Tipuric is in from the start after making a major difference upon his introduction on Saturday and one of the smaller members of a gigantic backline, Leigh Halfpenny, was the one who had the most impact. Halfpenny’s consistent excellence means he has probably moved ahead of Rob Kearney in the pecking order for the Lions full-back spot and he is well worth a place in any Fantasy team, particularly as he provides a back-up kicking option if required. And don’t forget that Sam Warburton is out so tranfer him unless you want to be stuck with zero points from him.
That finally brings us the big one on Sunday and while we live in hope, we can’t see Ireland putting up 30 points on the Auld Enemy this weekend. Similarly, we don’t envisage the English repeating their demolition of Ireland at Twickenham last year. A scoreline along the lines of the 20-16 (2010) or 14-13 (2009) is what we expect this weekend, although the simple fact that we predict a tight affair means that they’ll probably shoot the lights out.
The kicking of Owen Farrell and Jonathan Sexton is likely to have a huge bearing on proceedings and if it came down to a toss of a coin, we’d go for Sexton because of our hunch that Ireland will do just enough to shade proceedings on Sunday and Farrell’s uncomfortable experiences on these shores in the past.
Brian O’Driscoll’s capacity to score tries in big games means he will be a popular choice for those who hadn’t already had him in his team, while the likelihood of Manu Tuilagi starting from the bench means that Billy Twelvetrees, impressive on Saturday, might curry favour from some managers.
It should be noted that no forward received a man of the match award over the three games last weekend, but we think there’ll be no shortage of contenders from the respective packs on Sunday. Sean O’Brien was unlucky not to win the award on Saturday and Donnacha Ryan has consistently delivered big performances, while in the absence of big Ben Morgan at number eight, England will be looking to Chris Robshaw to lead from the front.
