The OG League Super Rugby Pacific 26 Round 3
The new champ and the has been.
Super Rugby Pacific 2026 Round 3 is complete and again we were blessed with some great fixtures over the weekend. As a highly biased Australian it was lovely to see three Aussie sides get the W over our neighbours across the Tasman, the Force beating Moana Pasifika, the Reds showing some of that form we talked about in preseason toppling the dangerous looking Highlanders and the Brumbies leaving it till the final minutes to defeat the Blues in Canberra. The Chiefs & Crusaders was game of the round for mine with some tantalising footy on display and whilst the Drua overcame the Hurricanes in gritty conditions, but the weather really robbed us of the game we deserved to see!
In terms of the OG League, the newly crowned 2025 OG League champion Nabung truly has picked up where he left off now making it 3 from 3 and the only undefeated manager this season. Conversely the man with the most OG League titles to his name, Harry is doing his darndest to live up to his latest moniker the “Haz-Been” with I believe his worst ever start to an OG league season 0 from 3.
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
Super Rugby Pacific Round 3 Top Performers
You can read about the full round 3 team of the week here.
Trades
The Round 2 trade session was again a relatively innocuous affair with managers fixing a few holes and vying for outside backs in rotation.
Harry in an unfamiliar position to him kicked off the trade night determined to do whatever was needed to field a starting team and not drop to a 0 for 3 start to his season. He first opted to swap some Drua backrowers dropping Joseva Tamani for the starting Etonia Waqa (36 points) who looked good and bagged himself a try.
Of the outside backs Blake picked up Darby Lancaster (46 points) who I think we all agreed was the choice outside back of the free agents in the OG League, Nelson picked up Lachie Anderson (47 points), Harry Epeli Momo (29), Sean Tim Ryan (44), Cargie first picked up Chay Fihaki (40) before then deciding that Ilaisa Droasese (7) was a better option at home for the Drua…
Nabung and Cargie did some planning for the future picking up some Waratahs on their bye week, Nabung dropping Ilaisa Droasese for Andrew Kellaway for his bench and Cargie dropping Tom Lambert for Isaac Kailea certain that after 2 dominant performances off the bench he’d be in with a start. When the team lineups for round 4 are released we will see if these paid off!
Concluding the trade night Harry finally dropped Allan Alaalatoa, the choice of the props in 2025, on his last trade and Nelson was the only one paying attention and swooped to grab him for his bench. Allan is still out recovering from a back injury and we have no idea when he will return to play, could be as early as next week, who knows. But what we do know is that if playing, you want him on your roster.
You can check out the casualty ward updates for rounds 3-4 chronicling all Super Rugby Pacific 2026 injuries and returns here.
Round 3 Fixtures
The second week of the 2026 season proved that Round 1 was no fluke, with big scores becoming the new normal and the update attacking bonus point of 550 looking like it could be on the money.
Lam & Order vs. Situti Down
In a battle where both sides were hungry for a result, Sean’s Lam & Order (532) managed to overcome Cargie’s Situti Down (427).
For Sean the victor, it was his first pick Charlie Cale and Mitchell Dunshea both with 52 points anchoring the effort, with strong contributions across the roster namely AJ Lam (46), Mils Sanerivi (44) trade night pickup Tim Ryan (44), Mac Grealy (43) and Ben Donaldson (42). The only disappointment was other trade night pickup Bayley Kuenzle (12) who had been looking good on the wing for the Brumbies (listed as a fantasy centre) with 35 points in round 1 and 60 in round 2.
Situti Down put up some shots with Timoci Tavatavanawai (51), Noah Hotham (51), Lucas Casey (50) & Sevu Reece (44) leading the charge, but beyond that was pretty lacklustre across the board and they ultimately couldn’t match the depth of their opponents in a tough loss.
The Toole Shed vs. Expecto-Pa-TRY-trum
The Toole Shed (512) roared back into form, comfortably dispatching Expecto-Pa-TRY-trum (359) to pick up their first victory of the season.
Wylie’s squad was powered by a hatrick and also round massive performance from Christian Lio-Willie (77) after a quiet opening first two rounds. Leroy Carter (75) scored perhaps the try of the season to date in a blockbuster Chiefs vs Crusaders fixture. Fraser McReight (72) & Josh Lord (52) continued their excellent form and kept the momentum going. How Wylie managed to score over 500 points whilst playing 2 men down without a starting lock or flyhalf and also forgetting to set his lineup again leaving a starting Finlay Christie (42) on the bench and playing a Folau Fakatava (3) off the bench instead… we’ll never know.
It was a difficult week for Andrew’s side and whilst the waratahs had a bye in round 3, the coach couldn’t bare to drop either Max Jorgensen or namesake Harry Potter to field a full roster. Despite only playing one outside back down, there were just very pedestrian fantasy scores across his entire roster, the only 2 shining lights were Crusaders pivot Taha Kemara (57) having an epic game and a forever solid Carlo Tizzano (48) effort. In his first season of the OG league and draft rugby Andrew has already experienced the highs and lows, coming off the top score in round 2 with 651 to now the bottom score & leaving him to look for answers before Round 4.
Roigardians of the Galaxy vs. SAMISONIC THE HEDGEHOG
In the closest contest of the round, top of the table Roigardians of the Galaxy (500) maintained their perfect record by the skin of their teeth, narrowly edging out SAMISONIC THE HEDGEHOG (493).
Nabung’s attack was led by his chiefs men Tupou Vaa’i (60), Luke Jacobson (60), and Emoni Narawa (50) managing to still bring home the bacon (fantasy points) in a loss to the Crusaders & keep his unbeaten streak alive. Other contributors of note were T.K. Howden (42) and Haereiti Hetet (40) who have provided great value thus far in Super Rugby 2026. Nabung was excited to pick up Isikeli Rabitu off the back of a big performance in round 2 but sadly he was a bust in round 3 with only 4 points and going off injured.
Nelson’s side was agonizingly close, bolstered by a monster outing from his engine room: Samisoni Taukei’aho (67), Lukhan Salakaia-Loto (60), and Darcy Swain (57). His decision to play a man down, unwilling to let go from his roster both an injured Kini Naholo & William Havili was ultimately his downfall and you’d have to think that the extra man would have bridged the 7-point gap. Trade night pickup Lachie Anderson with 47 points was a great pickup and should sure up his outside backs in the meantime as he waits for a few big guns to enter Super Rugby 2026 from his bench.
Ofa Tu’ungaFAST & The Furious vs. Leicester We Forget
Blake’s Ofa Tu’ungaFAST & The Furious (479) put in a solid shift to hand Harry’s Leicester We Forget (419) their third consecutive loss and one Harry will take hard after pulling out all the stops at trade night to field a full roster.
The winning effort was driven by All Blacks Quinn Tupaea (60) & Dalton Papali’i (60), trade night pickup Darby Lancaster (46) and consistent Brumbies men up front in Lachlan Shaw (43) and Billy Pollard (42). He still got it done this week despite his outside backs having a very quiet weekend and even the biggest coaching mistake of the round with Jock Campbell sitting pretty on his bench with 59 points instead he started Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens (12). Hard to blame him for that though.
The only players on Harry’s roster showing any real promise were Caleb Clarke (68) and Josh Canham (47) putting up big numbers, but the lack of production from the rest of the starting XV saw them fall short once again.
Logged in users on draft rugby can view the OG League results here.
Round 3 OG League Fantasy Facts:
Best Player: George Bell (89 points) – SAMISONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Worst Player: Denzel Samoa (-5 points) – Moana Pasifika
Best Super Sub: George Bell (89 points) – SAMISONIC THE HEDGEHOG
Best Free Agent: Allan Craig (58 points) - Moana Pasifika
Biggest Coaching Mistake: Were plenty this week:
Blake started Jacob Ratumaitavuki-Kneepkens (12) over Jock Campbell (59)
Cargie Started over Ngani Laumape (20) over George Bridge (58)
Wylie Started Folau Fakatava (3) over Finlay Christie (42)
The OG League Table After Round 3
Nabung’s Roigardians of the Galaxy is now alone at the top of the table, but as we said last round now his roster is in for a challenging few weeks. Now also alone but at the bottom of the table Harry’s (Leicester We Forget) threw everything at round 3 to no avail, what can they do to bag themselves their first win of the season before this gets embarrassing.
Logged in users can view the full OG League results and detailed breakdowns here.
What’s New on Draft Rugby?
I mentioned last week we were adding the competition fixture time’s and venue’s in those fixtures modules which is now live, see below:
The league fixture live totals have now been added to draftrugby.com. It wasn’t ready for round 3 as I was still testing it in our staging environment but it’s now there so you can see your league team total score live as you are watching the rugby.
Otherwise this week we worked on a bit more automation of our stats processing jobs and had a bit of an admin week. Our next feature is adding player status indicators (starting/benched/not selected) directly to your fantasy team view.
As always, keep the feedback coming, and we’ll keep building.
Cheers,
Dave