With Super Rugby 2013 just moments away we thought we’d give our readers some last minute fantasy rugby tips.  If you haven’t already subscribed or aren’t following us on twitter please do.  Last minute changes happen and you don’t want to be stuck with players who are going to score a big fat zero.   Infomercial over, here are your free tips:

1.  May the Force be with you!

Only for 2 weeks though.  The Force are going to be scrounging around at bottom of the table this year, kicking it with the Kings.  They should lose to the Rebels but 11 teams aren’t playing so you might as well invest.  Then they have a date in P.E. with the rank outsiders of this years competition, the Southern Kings, and could be in for some tasty away victory points.  After that you need to bin them quicker than Lance Armstrong’s EPO needles.

Alby Mathewson, Alfi Mafi and Winston Stanley are the obvious choices but if it’s a potential bargain you’ re after, Murray Godwin could be your man. The Zimbabwean-born Junior Wallaby looks like James O’Connor’s scruffier younger brother and plays like he is too.  Listed at flyhalf but he won’t be seen much at 10 with Sias Ebersohn and Sam Christie around, he could spend some time at number 12 though.  At 6 million he’s the cheapest “Flyhalf” in the competition leaving you buckets of money to spend elsewhere.

 

2. Hands off the Honey Badger

Don’t panic, it’s just a figure of speech, no one actually hands off the Honey Badger! We talked Nic Cummins up but the old knee is still not quite ready for full on Super Rugby.  The Badger will be playing for the Force A in the curtain raiser against Rebel Rising (just a silly name for Rebels A team).

 

3.  What are you doing with Dagg?

There’s nothing wrong with the player but the Crusaders aren’t taking part till round 3, at 12 million that’s a lot of tin sitting on the bench.  It’s like Francois “White Buffalo” Botha in the SBW match- he won’t score for the first 2 rounds.  Incredibly, Israel Dagg is owned by 20% of managers- who don’t read FRS.

 

4. What are you doing with any Crusaders for that matter?

Dan Carter, Kieran Read and Robbie Fruean are all popular choices but for the same reasons as above they should not be anywhere near your team.

 

5. The Rebels Kicking Duties

The question has been asked of us who will kick for the Rebels, Kurtley Beale or James O’Connor?  Based on the warm-up games, O’Connor is most certainly the 1st choice kicker at the moment.  O’Connor did receive 18 stitches in the face, fortunately his makeup is very good quality and he shouldn’t be too badly affected.

 

6. Still no Bismarck (sad face)

What an obvious statement to make!?  Or so you would think.  Clearly not to the less informed managers out there (18% of them to be precise) who think Bismarck du Plessis is ready to go.  Far from it, the Bizness is closed till at least round 8.   In summary: don’t waste money on expensive Hookers that can’t perform (sorry couldn’t resist – after 15 previews without a Hooker joke I earned that one!)

 

7. Beware of Red Herrings

The Cat and Mouse between The Reds and Brumbies continues with the Reds refusing to say who’ll be in their starting lineup.  That creates a bit of a conundrum for managers so we thought we’d have a go at predicting the likely starting XV.

Probable Starting XV

1. Greg Holmes, 2. Saia Faingaa, 3. James Slipper (c), 4. Adam Wallace-Harrison*, 5. Rob Simmons, 6. Eddie Quirk, 7. Liam Gill, 8. Jake Schatz,9. Ben Lucas,10. Quade Cooper, 11. Digby Ioane, 12. Mike Harris, 13. Ben Tapuai (vc), 14. Dom Shipperley, 15. Luke Morahan

*Could be James Horwill, the Reds haven’t named him in their squad saying he hasn’t fully recovered from an ankle injury but Jake White has stated that it could be another sneaky trick.  Before last year’s equivalent fixture the Reds said Cooper got injured at the Hotel, the hot-stepper played the whole game.  Perhaps he broke a nail while tweeting furiously.

The bottom line is go with stalwarts like Slipper, Shipperley, Ioane, Tapuai, Schatz and Gill.  Cooper’s a big risk as a kicker because of Harris’s accuracy in front of the posts.

Update: The Reds team has been announced with 30 minutes to the cut-off:

Reds: 15 Mike Harris, 14 Dom Shipperley, 13 Aidan Toua, 12 Ben Tapuai, 11 Digby Ioane, 10 Quade Cooper, 9 Ben Lucas, 8 Jake Schatz, 7 Liam Gill, 6 Eddie Quirk, 5 Rob Simmons, 4 Adam Wallace-Harrison, 3 James Slipper (c), 2 Saia Faingaa, 1 Greg Holmes
Replacements: 16 Albert Anae, 17 James Hanson, 18 Ed O’Donoghue, 19 Jarrad Butler, 20 Nick Frisby, 21 Jono Lance, 22 Chris F’Sautia

 

8. When there’s no Will there’s no way!  

Incredibly, the 4th most popular player in Fantasy Rugby (1 in 5 managers own him) and he’s not even playing, nor will he for some time.  We said it in our Reds preview, the Brumbies vs Reds preview, and it’s on our Injury page- Will Genia is out with a knee injury.  If you are part of the official fantasy rugby scout private league (code: 5678343087788) and you’re still sitting with Genia on Saturday morning… shame on you!

 

9. Captaincy

In our Captain’s poll James O’Connor leads the way which is no surprise considering his quality and the opposition.  Managers may want to have him at kicker which brings a guy like Scott Higginbotham into contention.  The former Red’s loosie scored 5 tries last year and is sitting at number 3 in our poll.   With limited depth in the back row Higginbotham should play 80 minutes and it wouldn’t come as a surprise for him to announce his debut with a try or two.  A couple of wing options are Henry Speight and Dom Shipperley who both scored 8 tries last season but Speight is far ahead in our poll (currently lying 2nd).

 

10. Kicking

With the Reds undecided and the Force under-par the two best choices of kicker are James O’Connor and Christian Lealiifano.  It really is a 50/50 call; while the Rebels game could be lucrative if the Force take a hammering, a tight game with lots of niggle between the Reds and Brumbies might dish up plenty of penalty opportunities.

 

Finally, we look forward to a great Super Rugby season with top-notch banter.  Good look to all managers!

 

FRS

Tags: Fantasy Rugby, fantasy rugby tips, super 15, Super 15 rugby, Super Rugby, Super Rugby Preview, Super XV

This entry was posted on Friday, February 15th, 2013 at 6:41 am and is filed under Fantasy Rugby Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.