Hi All,
Big read ahead so bare with me!
So, a while ago, I made the decision to take a break from posting weekly Fantasy updates as I needed to focus on work and other commitments (which includes badly falling behind on my PhD!) But, I want to write these end-of-season reviews because…Well, I love me some stat-digging, and it’s always fun to look back on a good season!
Well, what a Champions Cup this was! Northampton came within inches of performing the unexpected and turning over the mighty Bordeaux in Cardiff! After that opening 2 minutes, it looked like it would be Northampton’s day, but early injuries took their toll, and Bordeaux did what they had to do in order to lift the trophy. We had some incredible games along the way and some drama! There was also a LOT of high-scoring games this year and some juicy Fantasy points on offer. In fact…the only Golden Cap winner who didn’t score below 200 in a week was the one in the final (which makes sense because finals are rarely high-scoring affairs)! Crazy stuff. But, without further delay, I will announce the winners of the Reddit and Discord league!
Investec Champions Cup FINAL Top 10
Wobblies – 2005.50 FCB – 1986.50 American Blues – 1964.00 Yippee try yay – 1945.00 Daire97 – 1943.50 rm_232 – 1941.50 paul – 1928.50 AwakenTheBacon – 1922.50 jorra – 1910.00 Lyesalot – 1906.50
So there we have it. The Golden Cap for the final went to The Locks are Loaded who stuck with the golden back 3 of Penaud, LBB, and Freeman, a cheeky Pete in the back row, and a Poirot in the front row to take the plaudits. But, the winner for the season is the one, the only:
Wobblies!
I want to congratulate Wobblies for nailing the top spot. It was tight: only 41 points separating the top 3. Really could have gone any way!
Me: I wasn’t too proud of my performance. I got 13th, but on the flip side, all of you people in this league are GOOD, so I know I just need to step it up for next year 😉
Congratulations again Wobblies for the win! ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Well, we did them before, now we have the awards! – Community Awards First!——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Golden Cap Winners
Let’s give a huge congratulations to our Golden Cap winners for this season! –
C'estfou Macalou, Yippee try yay, paul, Daire97, GKDA SRHN, The Locks are Loaded
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Most Golden Cap Wins
No Fantasy player in the league got more than 1 Golden Cap this year…but, I have an idea for this year: The MVPWMNHWBCFTITTF Award! – (The MVP-Who-May-Not-Have-Won-But-Consistently-Found-Themselves-In-The-Top-Five) And this is awarded by giving 5 points for a Golden Cap, 4 points for second in a game week, 3 points for 3rd (and so on). Here are the top 5!
The Locks are Loaded – 10 Wobblies – 10 C'estfou Macalou – 9 Yippee try yay – 9 GKDA – 9
Good lord, I did this so that I could resolve the fact that there is no clear winner!
Can we just agree that The Locks are Loaded and Wobblies are just as amazing as each other? OR you two can fight it out to the death. Either/or, I don’t mind. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Biggest Score
Round 4 – Daire97 – 380.5 – I remember this round, and I remember waking up and thinking “Wow, I have broken 300, I’m definitely in for the cap this week…and then I saw Daire’s MONSTER score of 380.5! Captaining 6-try Penaud was a given for this week, but an extra 66 points from your other two back 3? 29 points for your Scrum Half? 46 from your locks? Insane scoring!
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Most Tries
Alfie – 65 – The most tries award goes to our 15th-placed Fantasy guru – Alfie! You beat our number 1-ranked player by 1 try! That averages out at 8 tries per game week. Awesome accomplishment!
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————Memorable Community Moments
So firstly, we have a few prophetic moments from our members (including myself! We love our fantasy, and it’s good to see some predictions come true. Even if they were silly ones:
Me predicting the Bath Euro win
Also, my rage and greediness predicting 5 out of the 6 tries Penaud scored in one game
Stu, unfortunately playing the Grim Reaper for Tommy o Brien
FRG summing up the emotions of all Quins fans during the knockout stages
And Finally, a beautiful reminder of why we play this game from Irishmowgli to our mighty Connachta: Colm
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————And now it's time for the player awards——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Most Points
Unsurprisingly, the player who tops the points-scored metric is Damian Penaud! He outscored the whole lot and was the only player in the whole tournament to score over 200 points. And this is coming just from a winger! INSANE statistics. A special shout-out also needs to go to Northampton’s Tommy Freeman, who scored 178.5 points, came 2nd on the try-scoring metrics, AND outscored Jalibert, who had a stellar season. Massive accomplishments.
Damian Penaud – 221.5 Tommy Freeman – 178.5 Mattieu Jalibert – 160.5
But, we have some lovely patterns emerging here for all of you pattern…ologists?
10 of the 15 in this list made the final in Cardiff The whole of the front row are from Bordeaux Ben Tameifuna made this list, whilst playing 4 of his 7 appearances off the bench Pete Samu made this list whilst only playing in 5 out of 8 games this season Only 4 teams were represented in this list, with Bordeaux taking the top spot for players represented- Bordeaux x7, Toulouse x4, Northampton x2, Leinster x2. Northampton may have made the final, but they apparently had a small spread of players contributing the most! Henry Pollock is the Youngest in this list (20), and Ben Tameifuna is the oldest (33) – A young age for a top-level prop! Speaking of Henry Pollock, he also was 4th on tries scored – only 2 behind his Northampton teammate Tommy Freeman We also had a few pairings – Bordeaux halfbacks Lucu and Jalibert, Bordeaux front row Tameifuna, Poirot, and Lamothe, and the mighty Toulouse lock pairing of Meafou and Flament
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Best Value
Now I love this because it gives a mix between player cost and player points. Every single million spent in this game is a million that can go towards getting you up those leaderboards and if a player is netting you a plethora of points and they do not break the bank, then it leaves you open to splash the big-bucks on those big-ticket players!
Now, the top 3 are:
Ben Tameifuna 1m – 65.50 Points Per Million Maxime Lamothe 2m – 50.50 Points Per Million Henry Pollock 3m – 49.97 Points Per Million
Now, these stats are obviously amazing, and the value of these players can not be understated, but a special shout-out needs to go to Josh Van der Flier, Tommy Freeman, and Damian Penaud for also topping their positions, whilst also having price tags of 7, 8, and 9 million! Want some more facts? Well, here you go!
Northampton’s James Ramm dethrones Ramos from the previous list to take one of the coveted back-3 spots Jude Postlethwaite is Ulster’s one of two entries into these lists and is also the cheapest back – costing only 2m The back row and front row are all unchanged (only the order of their points) Northampton’s Tom Lockett comes in at lock to knock off Flament and upset the Toulouse pairing! Four Northampton players made this list; a testament to their amazing effort in making the final with players who may not be household names. It sounds harsh, but how many of you can boast having Ramm, Lockett, and Pollock in your team in round 1? 11 of the 15 of these players can also be found in the “Most Points Scored” category. Maybe it isn’t always the best idea to be spending big every week? Food for thought right there!
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Best Points Per Game (PPG)
Now, it’s all well and good being top points scorer. But, you can argue that the numbers can be influenced by players who play more games for the club rather than impact. Fantasy is all about picking players who will score consistently well, but what about those players who score big whenever they play? Well, here is the list of players who have the highest PPG value in their positions:
Well, why stop the facts here?
Toulon’s Melvyn Jaminet topped the stats with an unreal 41.5 PPG! Ulster’s Jacob Stockade was a welcome return to form with a tasty 28.5 PPG Paolo Odogwu formed Benneton’s only entry into these lists Racing Metro seem to house the strike-props of the tournament, with Gogichashvili and Laclayat making the list Dupont (unsurprisingly) made this list and most-likely would have made at least one more if he would not have picked up an early injury A bit more of a diverse list here with: Toulon, Ulster, Bordeaux x4, Benneton Leinster x4, Toulouse, Bulls, Stade Français, Racing Metro x2 – all represented Only 3 players made all three lists! – Damian Penaud, Pete Samu, and Josh Van der Flier
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————And Finally, the MVP Awards——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
So, there were some strong contenders for Fantasy Back of the Year. Tommy Freeman deserves a massive shout-out for being in the form of his life: topping a number of metrics, and scoring a hat-trick in a semi-final AWAY AGAINST LEINSTER. Thomas Ramos was also considered, with his goal-kicking prowess and his attacking flair giving Fantasy players a huge headache for the coveted back 3 spot. And of course, we can’t go without giving a shout-out to Freddie Steward, who made 628 meters in this tournament! Why does that help us Fantasy players? Well, he scored a 35.5 and a 32.0 in two game weeks…all without scoring a try! Unheard of. But, there can only be one winner…and that winner is…
This might be the least-surprising entry for this year. Damian Penaud is the only back to make it into all 3 lists, his team won the championship, he scored the most tries (14), most clean breaks (24), most defenders beaten (31), 2nd on meters made (652) the top Fantasy points scorer, started every game, scored a brace in the final, AND let’s not forget that he scored that INSANE 6-try haul which netted him 70.5 Superbru points – the highest I think that I have ever seen in my life!
There may not be many players in this world who would be able to match those stats. Damian Penaud really is world-class and a Fantasy Rugby goldmine. And for this, he is the Official Reddit and Discord ICC Fantasy Back of the Year!
ICC Fantasy Forward of the Year
Right, this one was very VERY difficult to do. It was essentially a 3-horse race, and I had to do a LOT of stat-digging to make a decision on the winner. Firstly, a shout out has to go to Josh Van der Flier and Pete Samu for VERY narrowly missing out on the award for this season. The two back rows have been imperious this season, and both had some incredible scores across the rounds (with VDF and Samu both regularly scoring <20 and both tipping into the 30s too!)
But…our winner this year goes to none other than:
Henry Pollock!
The 20-year-old has had a meteoric rise to fame this year, and his Fantasy scores have reflected that. The decision was close, and some people may feel hard done by, but you can’t argue with these stats:
Pollock was the top try scorer out of any forward, scoring 7 tries throughout the competition. He is the highest-scoring Fantasy forward and has one of the highest points-per-million ratios in the competition. At only 2 million, Pollock thrashed out scores of 36, 23, 29, 21.5 (just to name a few), and played every game (with just one bench appearance). Samu almost won it, but those 3 missed games in the middle really cost him as that is an easy transfer to waste. That 2 million price tag is also a steal for a back rower and allows you to budget, whilst also raking in the points.
Love him or hate him. You can’t deny Pollock’s impact on the competition, and I can’t wait to see him in the Lions this year!
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So there we have it.
A fun season comes to a close. I enjoyed it this year but it was also quite tough to keep up with the crowd! Whenever I thought that I was smashing it, I found that I was finishing 7th/8th in the weekly rankings. But, it was great to see everyone coming together in the Discord and people really hashing out their choices. I love this community and it’s been a fun few months.
Congratulations to Bordeaux and congratulations to Wobblies for winning the league! See you for the Premiership writeup!
Paul
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