NPC 2003 Fantasy Rugby preview

OK, I've just spent about an hour picking my FR teams for the Tri-Nations and NPC competitions, sheesh it's hard work keeping up with all this! I think I'll give the Virtual NPC a miss this season and just focus on our own Rugbycomp, it's a far superior competition in any case. ;) Anyway on with the preview. I've always considered the NPC as the best of the Fantasy Rugby competitions, it just has the right mix of the consistant superstar players and the unknown diamonds in the rough that every season seems to turn up. The Super 12 has some of that I know, but not quite so much and the Tri-Nations and other International comps are generally too short to get any continuity going. This season is looking just as good as ever. If you have played a NPC Fantasy Rugby comp before you will quickly recognise that the FR boys are getting pretty good at setting the value of the players, the base price of every player that did well last year (or in the Super 12) is pretty damn expensive this time around. However, just because there are no real bargains in the name players doesn't mean there are no bargains. I'm not going to name names but here are a few tactics to think about when building your team. 1) The guys who are fringe AB squad members are going to get lots of game time this week and will be really busting a gut to impress. 2) Picking guys that are brand new to the NPC is risky but there are a few teams where some very cheap guys are going to get the opportunity to play a lot of minutes, either because the usual suspects are injured or are involved in defending our nations honour. ;) 3) Remember, the most important factor that affects a players fantasy performance is gametime! Couple that with the fact that inside backs and loose forwards are heavily involved in the game no matter who they are and what team they play for and you should be able to find some good contributors in the $1,000,000 or less bracket, just what you need when you have shelled out the big bucks for Headcase Troy and SwanSong Cully. ;D 4) Pick guys based on the matchup their team has for that week. If one of the top teams (ie: a Super 12 franchaise home union) is playing one of the wooden spooners (ie: the teams from either end of the land) then you can expect that the top dog is going to run in lots of tries and get lots of kicking practise. Conversely you can expect that their opposition is going to be doing a lot of tackling. Both sides will have their big fantasy contributors, you can work out who they are. 5) There are no byes this competition which means that the value of the top players is unlikely to come down unless their game time takes a hit (because they get injured or called up by the ABs) so if you want to maximise your team value and be able to afford the top performers then you need to be keeping an eye out for the weekly results to be posted so you can swoop in and snatch up the big performers from round one before the masses do. That's enough from me. Hopefully these tips are of use to someone, but not so useful that I wind up well down the standings in the Rugbyheads conference! If anyone has any more words of wisdom or just wants to sling some friendly abuse then please feel free to contribute on the discussion board.

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You just over-analyze this way too much Jules. Just do what I do and pick a team of Cantabs, you can't go wrong mate! Especially when all the big noters are either injured or off playing for the ABs, I put an entire squad together for this weeks game for the price of a 6 pack of CD! Of course I don't know who half them are but hey...

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