Instinct and general rugby knowledge are key when picking a team in The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League, but there’s no point ignoring the facts and figures staring you right in the face.
We don’t need much of a reminder about how disastrous last year’s Six Nations campaign was, but looking through the numbers from the 2013 tournament today brought it home in black and white.
Not only did Ireland score fewer points than any other team in the competition, but they barely featured at the top of any other category, whether it be line breaks, defenders beaten, passes made, tackles made or rucks won. We did come top of the yellow card table (5) and in lineouts won (57), although that stat is spoiled by the fact that Ireland also lost the most lineouts (14).
Italy, on the other hand, topped the pile when it came to most carries (611), most passes (713), most metres gained (2,104) and most off-loads (54) and still finished third from bottom with only four points, illustrating that in rugby as much as anywhere else, statistics don’t mean everything.
Team stats matter in The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League because, if a team aren’t hitting their numbers they’re probably not playing well and probably not scoring tries and kicking penalties, but far more important are the numbers attached to the individual players themselves because it’s those players who’ll rack up the precious points.
The first place to start is with the designated kicker, the likely source of the majority of your points from Round 1 right through to Round 6. Leigh Halfpenny is going to prove a popular choice with most managers and rightly so, in fairness.
The Toulon bound full-back was Player of the Tournament last year and player of the series during the Lions Tour during the summer. While that hints at his potential for winning man of the match awards (worth 5 points), he kicked 19 penalties and missed just six during last season’s tournament for a success rate of 76%. And he pitches in with the odd try as well. As far as we see it, the man is a must pick.
Picking Halfpenny enables a manager to include the likes of Johnny Sexton or Owen Farrell in their team as well, which could come in handy on the days Wales might be facing a tougher fixture than Ireland or England and you fancy handing over the kicking duties.
Points for the kicker are all well and good but scoring tries is the most important part of Fantasy as well as real-life rugby and a good eye for a man who likes crossing the whitewash is the key to whether you’re going to be a champ or a chump.
As far as Ireland are concerned, Luke Fitzgerald has looked back to his old self and if given a shot in the Six Nations, he could well improve on the three tries he’s scored already this season. Jordi Murphy, meanwhile, an outside bet to replace his Leinster colleague Sean O’Brien in the Irish number seven jersey, has scored four.
You might not like the guy, but he scores a lot of tries
For England, he might not be the most likeable chap but Chris Ashton is the leading try-scorer in the Heineken Cup so far with seven touchdowns to go with the four he’s scored in the Aviva Premiership, where his Sarries team-mate David Strettle is the leading scorer with eight tries to date but hasn’t even been included in the England squad.
We’ve already talked about the threat of Leigh Halfpenny for Wales and equally as obvious is the danger posed by Lions wingers Alex Cuthbert and George North and Lions centres Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies, who should return from injury for game three against France.
Speaking of Les Bleus, Wesley Fofafa was a popular selection last year and with six tries in the ten Six Nations matches he has played to date, he will be again this year, as will Maxime Medard, who has seven tries in 13 Six Nations games to date.
Being selected as man of the match earns as many points as scoring a try, of course, but no stats can go towards justifying your selection in that regard; it’s all about instinct and most recent form.
Aside from the potential match-winners listed above, we happen to think Paul O’Connell has a couple of huge performances in him after missing last year’s Six Nations and the majority of the 2012 tournament, while, predictable as it might be, Italy’s Sergio Parisse never lets anyone down.
Louis Picamoles has beaten more defenders than anyone in the Heineken Cup this season and could be a decent bet to pick up an individual accolade or two for Philippe Saint-André’s men, David Denton could be an inspirational figure for Scotland, while Alun Wyn Jones, Sam Warburton and Toby Faletau have similar qualities in Warren Gatland’s side.
Click here for some more tips on picking your team and if you haven’t registered your team yet, there’s still plenty of time left to do so over on The Irish Times Fantasy Rugby website, but if you do it before Saturday, 25 January at 23:59pm, you’ll be entered into a draw to win two tickets for Ireland v Wales at the Aviva Stadium on February 8.
If you’d like to pit your wits against fellow JOE readers and the so-called rugby experts in the JOE office, meanwhile, and you know you want to, the code for entry to the JOE League is 51898.
