Gallagher Premiership Fantasy League Team of the Week: Round 6
We’ve hit Round 6 in the Gallagher Premiership and if you had said before the start of the season that this is what the table would look like you’re a damn liar. Sure, Exeter and Saracens sit pretty at the top with 6 straight wins, though Saracens’ perfect start was punctured slightly this weekend as they failed to secure a bonus point against Harlequins. At the other end, Newcastle’s improvement over the past few seasons seems to have faltered, with the Falcons surprisingly sitting rock bottom. Bristol Bears were previously clawing their way up the rungs, but with their first real thrashing coming at the hands of fellow pre-season relegation candidates Worcester Warriors this weekend, the West Country side aren’t looking quite as safe as previously thought. In the middle of the field, a bonus point win could see Bath or Worcester jump straight up into the Top 4, so it’s still very much anyone’s game right now.
But something that certainly isn’t anyone’s game is the RugbyPass Fantasy League. No, this is reserved only for the very elite, those players who have dazzled and thrilled our omniscient, omnipotent algorithm and sacrificed it all on the altar to pay tribute to The Almighty Scout. Lest we incur its vengeful wrath with more stalling, let us join together and bask in the glory of the Team of the Week:
Fantasy League Team of the Week: Round 6
1. Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins)
2. Max Crumpton (Harlequins)
3. Yann Thomas (Bristol)
4. Bryn Evans (Sale)
5. James Gaskell (Wasps)
6. Marco Mama (Worcester)
7. Don Armand (Exeter)
8. Zach Mercer (Bath)
9. Francois Hougaard (Worcester)
10. Danny Cipriani (Gloucester)
11. Bryce Heem (Worcester)
12. Ryan Mills (Worcester)
13. Janse van Rensburg (Sale)
14. Charlie Sharples (Gloucester)
15. Jonah Holmes (Leicester)
*Please note, player positions are determined by The Scout’s statistical analysis and thus may not be accurate
After briefly dropping down to just two players last week, Worcester Warriors are back once again for the renegade master with 6 players in the Team of the Week, with four in the starting line up and Duncan Weir and Josh Adams on the bench, matching their feat from Round 4. Four Harlequins make the matchday 23, a good return considering how closely they ran the dominant Saracens this week. Perhaps surprisingly, Sale Sharks contribute the same number despite lurking just two points off the bottom of the table, swapping places with basement side Falcons after a victory at the AJ Bell Stadium on Saturday.
The half-backs are unchanged from last week with Francois Hougaard partnering Danny Cipriani as the playmakers of the side. Cipriani hasn’t quite done enough to unseat George Ford in the Team of the Tournament so far, but with the Leicester man not even making the 23 this week it seems perhaps the scales are tipping in favour of the mercurial Gloucester 10.
Speaking of the Team of the Tournament, both Ryan Mills and Charlie Sharples did their overall tournament ambitions no harm with some cracking performances over the weekend, retaining their spots in the starting XV for the league as a whole. There’s a new entrant at full back though, with Jonah Holmes displacing bigger names after a phenomenal showing for Leicester in their East Midlands derby victory over Northampton Saints. As for their opponents, not a single Saint makes the side this week, with the only other sides to rack up this unfortunate stat being the aforementioned strugglers Newcastle and, bizarrely, Saracens.
Player of the Week:
Ignore any accusations of incitement to violence from LL Cool J, Marco Mama is our Player of the Week with 24.2 points in Worcester’s demolition of Bristol including 1 try and a truly astonishing 28 tackles. There’s no word on whether he did the hump, did the hump-hump but if he’s in your Fantasy League Team you might want to Take Your Mama out for a drink to thank him for his performance this weekend.
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
26 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
26 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
26 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
26 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
26 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments