Just like the actual rugby itself, the scores in the Irish Times Fantasy Rugby League failed to match the highs of the opening weekend of the Six Nations.
Well, that was a pretty crap weekend, wasn’t it? Obviously it wasn’t so bad for Scotland, Wales and England, but there wouldn’t have been many purists impressed with the quality of rugby on show in all three encounters, which was probably understandable given the physical toll of last weekend’s games and the effect it had on the players.
Last week, we suggested that Scotland v Italy might be the highest scoring of all three games and so it proved as the Scots put 34 points on the board, with Tim Visser, Stuart Hogg, Matt Scott and Sean Lamont all scoring tries and Greig Laidlaw landing six kicks and earning the man of the match award for a 13-point haul. Alessandro Zanni scored eight points thanks to his consolation try in Murrayfield.
Only Leigh Halfpenny (12) could compete with Laidlaw in the scoring stakes as far as the backs were concerned this weekend, with the Welsh full-back landing four kicks in a man of the match performance, although those kicks wouldn’t have been much good to any managers who hadn’t selected him as the designated kicker for this round.
George North managed eight points after his first try of the tournament in Paris and judging by his Dad’s reaction, he must have had him on his Fantasy Rugby team as well, a far likelier explanation than the fact that he would have been beaming with pride thanks to his son’s try-scoring exploits.
Chris Robshaw was the big winner from the Ireland v England game, with his man of the match award earning the England skipper eight points, while Owen Farrell’s seven point return after four successful kicks means he remains as the highest scorer in the competition to date with 25 points.
Jerry vs. Mal
Despite not making a single change to his team, this week, Jerry Flannery’s Fla’s Fantastic Moist Makers managed to regain the initiative from Malcolm O’Kelly’s Fafafinas this week with a pretty solid 58 points.
Jerry’s outfit included try-scorers Stuart Hogg, Tim Visser and George North and man of the match Chris Robshaw, who all earned enough points to offset the loss through injury of Simon Zebo and Jonathan Sexton, meaning that Fla will have to shuffle his deck in a fortnight’s time.
Malcolm’s Fafafinas side, meanwhile, contained not one player who either scored a try or won a man of the match award so he had to be content with a fairly measly 48 points, which turns his six-point lead over Jerry last week into a four-point deficit.
Jerry shouldn’t be too overjoyed, however, because he’s still outside the top 200 in the JOE league even if his four-point advantage over Mal is enough to separate the pair of them by 66 places in the highly competitive JOE League. The (almost) halfway report card reads ‘Must do better’ lads.
The JOE League
So competitive is the JOE League, in fact, that only Justin Gouldsbury’s justtheone retain their place in the top five from last week, and just like last week, he holds a seven point lead at the top from the nearest challenger, Colin Gannon’s BeepBeep.
JL Pagano’s HarpinonRugby.net are in hot pursuit a point behind in third place, while Carl Duggan’s BDT and David Connolly’s Munster Munch make up the rest of the top five, with all managers now facing into a break of ten days or so where they can mull over the changes necessary for Round 3 the weekend after next.
The JOE League Top 5:
- Justin Gouldsbury – justtheone: 161 points
- Colin Gannon – BeepBeep: 154 points
- JL Pagano – HarpinonRugby.net: 153 points
- Carl Duggan – BDT: 151 points
- David Connolly – Munster Munch: 149 points
201. Jerry Flannery – Fla’s Fantastic Moist Makers: 124 points
267. Malcolm O’Kelly – Fafafinas: 120 points
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