FANTASY SUPER RUGBY ROUND 17 TEAM SCORES

This is how the Super Rugby teams themselves scored in Fantasy Super Rugby 2019, Round 17:

TEAM STARTING XV FULL TEAM (23) BENCH ONLY Crusaders 823 957 134 Highlanders 633 679 46 Reds 606 705 99 Brumbies 562 622 60 Blues 501 539 38 Jaguares 482 589 107 Waratahs 478 577 99 Hurricanes 451 607 156 Bulls 444 547 103 Lions 432 534 102 Stormers 419 476 57 Sunwolves 391 455 64 Sharks 366 456 90 Rebels 289 382 93 Chiefs BYE BYE BYE

Well no surprises here, the Crusaders topped both the starting fifteen with an insane 823 fantasy points and also the full 23 (15 starters + 8 bench) with 957 points of the Super Rugby clubs in Fantasy Super Rugby round 17. To put that in perspective, our leagues highest ever fantasy score took place this year with 738 points for which we believed a celestial alignment and many a sacrifice must have taken place. And that is a with a fantasy team!!! The Crusaders super rugby club is just a fantasy team unto itself and boy did they hand out an absolute hiding to the lost, small children they were playing this week, oh wait it was the Melbourne Rebels. At full time the score was 66 - 0 and the first XV's fantasy scores were 823 - 289. Crusaders players took out 5 of the top 10 fantasy scores for the week!

Essentially the men from Christchurch just sent the ball out wide and unleashed their world class, fantasy phenom back line who scored all ten tries. Wingers Sevu Reece (Fantasy Man of the Round - 122 pts) and Braydon Ennor (102 pts) were competing for bragging rights, both bagged three tries each and fullback David Havili (96 pts) wasn't far behind with own two tries. Ennor actually had the chance for a fourth (and the #RYANQUADDY!!!!) but he, almost comically, dropped the ball over the line! Speaking of Ryan Crotty (95 pts), old mate himself had one helluva game in his 150th Super Rugby cap, he made 4 line breaks, busted 9 tackles and crashed over for a try on the 80th minute to just really make it one to remember. The last player I'll mention (rather than go through them all!), with the 5th highest score in this game and 10th for the round was Richie Mo'unga (75 pts) who was the architect of this Blitzkrieg with some fantastic play making and short chips in behind. He put the ball exactly where it needed to be all night.

Despite the 24 all draw, the Highlanders took out the 2nd highest fantasy score (633) of the Super Rugby clubs in round 17 coming back fresh after a bye. Bobby T (Rob Thompson - 83 pts) was the Fantasy man of the match after just getting stuck into absolutely everything. The landers general Aaron Smith was back to his scintillating best (Afterdavid's 3 round AVG is 55.7 & his 5 round AVG 48.6). Other strong performances came by way of Josh McKay (59), Jackson Hemopo (53) trying his best to keep that insane 3 round AVG up (it's still at 68.3!) and co-captain/Mr reliable Luke Whitelock (52). It's pretty insane how this match resulted in a draw but the Highlanders received the Lions share of the fantasy points!!! The Bulls came in 9th for the round with 444 fantasy points. The Landers lead all the attacking stats, close to double the offloads and line breaks, 10 more tackle busts and 120 more run metres. The Bulls stayed in this match off the back (or front?) of Handre Pollard's boot, kicking 100% (4/4) after being flown in just for the game (a great call!).

Last but not least, the Hurricanes saw the biggest injection from their bench against the Lions this week with 156 points off the pine. This was so abundantly evident for two reasons, first the scoreboard - the first 40 was a close fought affair ending at 10 all with both teams testing each other out and vying for field position. Then queue the entrance of Dane Coles and Ardie Savea joining the Hurricanes to start the second stanza, the Canes with those extra potent attacking weapons outscored the Lions four tries to one. I will add the caveat that the Lions did lose Kwagga Smith to a hammy injury just 25 minutes into the match (check out The Casualty Ward to find out more and for all Super Rugby injury news). The second reason is made more obvious by looking at the fantasy man of the match. Who was it? None other than the aforementioned Dane Coles off the bench!!! The Great Dane was looking real good and scored two tries and 75 fantasy points. Frustratingly for fantasy managers, the Hurricanes have been very lucky with their depth that they haven't needed to rush him back into the fray and I'm sure it will pay dividends come finals.

How did your Fantasy team compare to the Super Rugby Clubs?

You can check out how our league teams went in the OG League Blog!

One more week of the regular season to go!! Huge week for both the Super Rugby teams and fantasy managers with so many still in contention for finals!!! Unfortunately for managers the Crusaders have a bye in round 18, so no longer can you rely on the men from Christchurch. Our tip: Pick up any Jaguares (vs the Sunwolves) or Highlanders (vs a Waratahs B team after resting all Wallabies) that are still free agents!!! They are both at home and set to go big in round 18.

We talk about this and more in this weeks episode of the Draft Rugby podcast. Get after it where ever you listen to pods: