Fantasy Rugby Review – The Final Countdown

Were you a champ or a chump after a breathless last weekend of The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League? Come this way to find out.

Conor Heneghan

Fantasy Rugby Review – The Final Countdown

Were you a champ or a chump after a breathless last weekend of The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League? Come this way to find out.

Your heart and your head may have not yet recovered from the drama of Paris on Saturday evening and the subsequent celebrations afterwards, but there could have been even more reasons to be cheerful if things went your way in the last weekend of action in The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League.

Although Ireland’s clash with France was far from a low-scoring affair, we had recommended last week that it might be more prudent to focus on the other two matches when looking for points and so it proved as England and Wales went to town on Italy and Scotland respectively.

As we had expected, picking Owen Farrell as kicker proved a fruitful strategy as, with points for penalties and conversions included, the out-half returned 22 points this week, one more than his colleague and worthy contender for player of the tournament Mike Brown.

Chris Robshaw (8), Maku Vunipola (7) and Jack Nowell (8) also featured prominently for Stuart Lancaster’s men, while Leanardo Sarto was best for the Italians with eight points.

Over in Cardiff, the men in red were queuing up for tries and Fantasy Rugby points, with five of them – Jamie Roberts (13), George North (13), Liam Williams (12), Toby Faletau (11) and Dan Biggar (11 points as kicker) all reaching double figures on what, with no thanks to Stuart Hogg, was a miserable day for the Scots all round.

Finally, to Paris, where it was no surprise to see Jonathan Sexton (15 points as kicker) and Brian O’Driscoll (8) rack up the points for the second weekend in succession, with Sexton repeating the brace of tries he scored against Italy and BOD receiving the man of the match award for the second week running.

Andrew Trimble and Conor Murray also received eight points for their contributions on a memorable night for the men in green, while Brice Dulin (8) and Dimitri Szarzewski (7) can be happy with their efforts for a French side who gave us an almighty fright before the relief of the final whistle in the Stade de France.

Jerry vs. Mal

For the second season in succession, big Mal O’Kelly can claim the bragging rights over former international colleague Jerry Flannery after coasting to a relatively comfortable head to head victory to ensure another Leinster v Munster battle goes in the former’s favour.

Mal didn’t have to do anything spectacular to come out on top, but instead posted a solid score of 68 points on the final day, nine better than what Jerry could muster, leading to a final winning margin of 24 points and further embarrassment for Fla on a weekend when Dimitri Szarzewski showed once again that Jerry is not the only member of rugby’s front row brigade with great hair.

Hearty congrats to Mal, who will no doubt enjoy rubbing this latest victory in Jerry’s face the next time the pair of them meet at the next JOE Heineken Cup Rugby roadshow, details of which will be announced in the next couple of weeks. Watch this space.

The JOE League

Far more important than the identity of the Jerry v Mal head to head, of course, was the identity of the winner of the JOE League and all plaudits should be sent in the direction of Colin McDonagh, who led his Coly’s XV side to glory by a comfortable margin of ten points.

Fergal Brickley’s Sam’s 15 fought the good fight right to the end and ended in second place behind Coly’s XV, with Brendan Finan’s Fine Flyers, Colm Mulkerrin’s El putto madrey and James O’Regan’s Louis PicksHisNose coming in ahead of the chasing pack in what, for the second year in a row, was a very competitive affair overall.

While Joe Schmidt considers enlisting the services of Colin for the tour to Argentina later this year, we’d like to thank all of you for entering and ask you all to please return next year to have another crack at success.

And remember, if you don’t end up winning the thing, there is solace to be found in the fact that, let’s face it, you are probably going to end up finishing ahead of Jerry when it’s all said and done.