The OG League Super Rugby Pacific 26 Round 1
Here we go again!
Super Rugby Pacific is back! We have had our first full week of footy, and with it, our first full week of the OG League! Check in throughout the season to see how our fantasy competition unfolds as we hunt for the 2026 Draft Championship.
What is the OG League? for those newcomers joining us, The OG League is the founding Draft Rugby fantasy league and is in its’ 14th year of playing Draft Rugby. The OG League is a public and featured league on the draft rugby platform that you can follow along for the season if you have signed up to the platform. You can find it and on the public leagues page featured at the top at draftrugby.com/leagues/join
Team Names
After the initial draft, the first order of business every year for the OG League is coming up with your team name and thanks to generative AI we now also were all charged with creating our own Team Posters. Harry had the idea of all managers taking a photo in front of a green screen and super imposing them in front of their banners but we’ve decided to stitch him up and you’ll find he’s the only one below.
Trades
The post draft but preseason trade session was a frantic affair as managers scrambled to fix their draft regrets, miscalculations or spanners thrown in the works by Super Rugby coach selections. The trade session order is in season decided by the league table reverse order, giving those at the bottom a better opportunity to pick up players to turn their fortune around. The round 0 trade session however is a randomly generated pick order which adds for some extra excitement not knowing what the order is or you who are going to get until the trade session is opened.
Before the season and trade session even started we had our first manager to manager trade proposal go through, with Blake accepting Harry’s proposal to trade Angus Ta’avao and Andrew Kellaway for Jock Campbell and Feleti Sae-Ta’ufo’ou after the round 1 lineups were released on the Wednesday.
To the trade session itself, Wylie with the trades of the round picking up Waratahs Ethan Dobbins (68 points) & Miles Amatosero (58 points), Blake swapped out half his back row dropping Anton Segner (benched) & Etonia Waqa (not selected) for Vaiolini Ekuasi (57 points) & Kitione Salawa (38 points). Nabung was feeling the Drua at home in Fiji, shipping out Lachie Anderson for Manasa Mataele (42 points). Harry picked up Kadin Pritchard (57 points) only to leave him on his bench as his top scoring centre and Nelson dropped Argentine lock Franco Molina (52 points) for Clem Halaholo (35 points) looking like too good an opportunity, a fantasy lock playing in the backrow.
Round 1 Fixtures
The 2026 season opening round saw plenty of upsets in both Super Rugby & The OG League!
Ofa Tu’ungaFAST & The Furious narrowly triumphed over The Toole Shed 528–499. Tu’ungaFAST & The Furious had plenty of big names still on the bench this week but bagged the win due to big performances from Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens (67 points), trade night pickup Vaiolini Ekuasi (57 points) and then the brumbies forwards James Slipper (51) and Lachlan Shaw (50). The Toole Shed will have to just take solace in a losing bonus point, and will also be hoping for a few big names to suit up in round 2. Standouts were trade night pickups Ethan Dobbins (68 points) & Miles Amatosero (58 points), Fraser McReight on (54) and the namesake Corey Toole with 44.
SAMISONIC THE HEDGEHOG took care of business against Expecto-Pa-TRY-trum 506–388 playing 2 men short of a starting XV! His men scored pretty consistently in the high 30s and 40s across the board and was spearheaded by the big men upfront, namesake Samisoni Taukei’aho (69) proving why he was a top-tier draft pick and Rhys van Nek (55). Expecto-Pa-TRY-trum struggled to get the wand working in round 1 and wasn’t helped with taking a punt on trade night pickup, exciting Reds youngster Vaiuta Latu that didn’t pan out with -7 points. the man behind the team name Harry Potter conversely only managed 7 points with most the ball going Max Jorgensens (60) way in the Tahs victory over the reds but fortunately, his fantasy team has both Tahs wingers/wizards. Apart from Bradley Slater (56) and Carlo Tizzano (49) the rest of the side didn’t really get it going and will need to improve into round 2.
Picking up right where he left off last season, newly crowned champion Nabung with his new roster Roigardians of the Galaxy, absolutely decimated Cargie’s Situti Down 635–484 turning his team name on it’s head. Despite playing 3 men off the bench, the fantasy gods shone down on Nabung once more countering the inside draft rugby intel that Will Jordan wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks, yet Crusaders coaches obviously couldn’t resist and he was one of the headliners with 63 points off the bench. Tupou Vaa’i was his top scorer with 78 scoring every fantasy managers dream an illegal try (diving over) that was only disallowed after the dust, and points had settled days later… Otherwise it was the Drua men making up 1/3 of his roster despite losing their fixture against Moana killed it on the fantasy front with Canakaivata (62), Hetet (58), Mataele (42) Togiatama (40) and Kemu Valetini (38). Situti Down put up a fight through Noah Hotham (76 pts), Tavatavanawai (65) and Rob Valetini (62) but having Mesake Vocevoce register a soul-crushing -17 for a yellow card and his outside backs not firing a shot Taumoefolau (9), Sevu Reece (2) & Alaimalo (-1) was ultimately what sank his battleship.
“The Spoon or SeanAI” and his team Lam & Order secured a tight win over Harry’s Leicester We Forget in a high-scoring 591–545 shootout where they both opted to play a man down with only 14 players. Tough pill to swallow for Harry losing round one with the third highest fantasy score of the round but as consolation he will come out of it with a losing bonus point. This game was decided by the “Cale-factor.” Charlie Cale put in the performance that we knew him capable and saw his selected as a first round draft pick, with 114 points—scoring twice and tackling everything that moved. Following that act was another miracle, Moana captain Miracle Faiilagi who bagged himself a hatrick running straight through and over the Drua in an absolute captains knock of 73 points. Otherwise it was engine room men Tom Robertson & Jamie Hannah both with 49 points and generally serviceable scores across the rest of the roster. Leicester We Forget’s also great score was spearheaded by his outside backs Ponipate Loganimasi’s (87), Caleb Clarke’s (60) and 54 points from Jona Nareki. These are the type of outside back points that would have won them almost any other fixture. Up front it was Semisi Tupou Ta’eiloa (56) and Josh Canham (52) who excelled and who knows a 15th starting man could have made the difference. Harry did have the points to win this fixture but sadly for him they were on the pine, had he played Patrick Pellegrini (41), Kadin Pritchard (57 points) and Temo Mayanavanua (48) over Josh Jacomb (5), Leicester Fainga’anuku (13 points) and Josh Beehre (23) victory would have been secured but I think you’d be hard pressed to blame him for this coaching decisions.
Logged in users on draft rugby can view the OG League results here.
Extra Facts:
Best Player: Charlie Cale (114 points) – Lam & Order
Worst Player: Mesake Vocevoce (-17 points) – Situti Down
Best Super Sub:
Best Free Agent: Allan Craig (60 points) - Moana Pasifika
Biggest Coaching Mistake: Starting Leicester Fainga’anuku (13 points) and leaving Kadin Pritchard (57 points) – Leicester We Forget
The OG League Table After Round 1
I was a bit late to get this article out this week, was working away on adding starting team lineups to Draft Rugby which I am happy to report are now live!
You can find them by clicking a fixture on the Super Rugby 2026 Page
Or if you want to see all of them for round 2 you can view that here - note I haven’t added a link to this page yet.
Which takes you to the fixture lineups & score:
The next things we are working on are adding the player status (starting/benched/not playing/injured) to all players and your fantasy team! That and getting your team total to update live along with individual live stats that went live only just last week! We received lots of great feedback about that so thanks all and we will keep working away on Draft Rugby! Please keep sending through your feedback and suggestions.
Cheers,
Cargie
PS See you at the Waratahs Game tonight Friday 20 Feb!