FANTASY SUPER RUGBY QUARTER FINALS TEAM SCORES
This is how the Super Rugby teams themselves scored in the Fantasy Super Rugby 2019 Quarter Finals (Round 19):
TEAM STARTING XV FULL TEAM (23) BENCH ONLY Brumbies 511 616 105 Hurricanes 493 579 86 Chiefs 475 531 56 Crusaders 454 566 112 Bulls 370 400 30 Sharks 359 436 77 Jaguares 350 391 41 Highlanders 264 312 48
The Brumbies were top of the fantasy log for the Super Rugby 2019 Quarter Finals with 511 points from their starting XV and 616 points from the full 23. At home in a chilly Canberra, they defeated the Sharks (359 points) off the back of some great offense in the first half and then an incredible second half defensive effort (The Sharks had 73% possession and 79% territory in the second half!). The Brumbies came flying right out of the gates with Fantasy man of the match, Pete Samu (71 points) running a great inside line and having the pace to run 40 odd metres to touch down under the posts in the first minute! The Brumbies offense looked well polished and were attacking the Sharks in all facets of the game in the opening Stanza; a try to Henry Speight (46 points) out wide and then Pete Samu again off the back of the driving maul. Both teams specialize in the rolling maul, neither team had conceded a try to a maul yet this season until the men from Canberra forced their way over. The Sharks were not helped by losing their main man Dan Du Preez to injury 15 minutes in and then also number 7, Tyler Paul shortly after that.
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The first half ended with the Brumbies outscoring the Sharks 24 - 6 and also ended Pete Samu's game, succumbing to a hamstring injury and not returning to the field for the second half. You can find out more about Pete Samu's injury and all Super Rugby injuries in the Casualty Ward. For the first 30 minutes of the second stanza, the Brumbies just defended wave after wave of attack camped down on their own turf. The Sharks lacked creativity in this attack and whilst the Brumbies did a pretty incredible job matching the brute force with rock solid defense, eventually they did capitulate when Andre'the Giant' Esterhuizen (60 points) crashed over for a try. In the last 10 it was as if the Brumbies had weathered the Storm and the Sharks were tired of storming the beach. The Brumbs finally stepped back into enemy territory and scored two rapid fire tries to see off the Sharks. These were scored by fleet footed scrumhalves Joe Powell (44 points) and his replacement Matt 'Tyrion' Lucas racking up 27 points in the final 7 odd minutes. Other fantasy performers worth a shout out were front rowers Allan Alaalatoa (51 pts) & Folau Fainga'a (50 pts) making 19 and 17 tackles respectively (2 pts/tackle for a front rower) and also Tom Banks (51 pts) with over 120 run metres and a couple of awesome line breaks that lead to tries.
The Hurricanes have typically been the bench injection kings in fantasy rugby this season and one would have thought with Salasi Rayasi coming off the bench very early and having a 40 point game (more if he hadn't been yellow carded) that they would again have this in the bag. But alas this week they left most of their starting cattle on the field until the very end and the Crusaders had the top bench injection scoring 112 points largely thanks to Michael Alaalatoa's try and 39 points and also Mitch Drummond with 23.
When playing fantasy rugby it is not always about the match result for fantasy managers. This can easily be seen by the Chiefs (475) considerably outscoring the Jaguares (350) in fantasy points (they lead all the attacking stats and had double the line breaks 14 - 7!!) but ultimately lost the match and have been knocked out of the finals.
How did your fantasy team compare to the Super Rugby clubs? You can check out how our league teams went in the quarter finals in the OG League Blog.
We reviewed the quarter finals, preview the semi finals and more in this weeks episode of the Draft Rugby podcast. Get after it where ever you listen to pods:


