Rugby

Fantasy Six Nations: How to Play

Fantasy Six Nations: How to Play

Six Nations rugby is well underway in 2023, and that means one thing: Six Nations Fantasy is here as well.

For those who have never heard of or played Six Nations Fantasy before, it’s the perfect outlet for those who love rugby and want to try their hand at a little amateur coaching themselves. In essence, you build your own squad from players across the Six Nations competition, then manage your team across the season with players scoring points for a variety of different reasons.

With the options to compete generally for prizes such as game tickets and merchandise, or simply against your mates for bragging rights, Six Nations Fantasy is a fantastic add-on to your Six Nations experience this year. And we’re here to show you how to play Six Nations Fantasy, including everything you need to know to succeed.

Where to Play Six Nations Fantasy

There are several different versions of Six Nations Fantasy, with multiple websites offering variations of the game.

Some of the options for playing Six Nations Fantasy include:

  • Superbru
  • The Rugby Magazine
  • Fantasy Rugby Draft

However, the official version can be found here, at sixnationsrugby.com.

While some of the other Six Nations Fantasy options are great fun, below we’ll be talking about the official game, as it is the largest and most widely played of all the options.

How to Play Six Nations Fantasy

Before we look at some of the most recent tips for winning in Six Nations Fantasy, it’s critical to know how to play Six Nations Fantasy. Below are some of the key facets of how to play:

Picking Players for Six Nations Fantasy

At its very core, Six Nations Fantasy is all about picking the mix of players that you think will score the most points for you across the Six Nations competition.

Each fantasy team is made up of 18 players—this will be a starting 15, and then three substitutes. These players can be picked from any team in the current Six Nations, but there are two important things to note:

  • Players are assigned star values, based on their perceived value—which changes over the course of the season
  • Only four players can be selected from one nation

Given that you will only have a budget of 245 stars to spend on your team, this is where the skill of successfully managing a fantasy team comes into play. Will you spend big on a couple of big name players, or spread your budget across many solid players? Or, buy cheaper players who you believe will increase in value that can then be traded?

That’s your call to make.

How Six Nations Fantasy Scoring Works

All of the selections you make in your fantasy team are designed to get you a team that can score the most points possible. Here’s how those points are accumulated by individual players:

  • 15 points for a try
  • 2 points for a conversion
  • 7 points for a drop goal
  • 5 points for a penalty kick
  • 10 points for a 50:22 kick
  • 7 points for a line break (with an additional point for every five meters gained)
  • 7 points for a breakdown steal
  • 1 point for a tackle (and 7 points for a dominant tackle)
  • 7 points for a lineout steal
  • 15 points for an official Guinness Six Nations Player of the Match award
  • -5 points for a yellow card
  • -10 points for a red card

As well as this individual scoring system, there is a team scoring system, which goes as follows:

  • 8 points for all players on a winning team
  • 4 points for all players on a team that draws

Other Things to Know About Six Nations Fantasy

There are a few other important decisions to make when putting together your Six Nations Fantasy squad.

Six Nations Fantasy

  • One player must be selected as captain each round—this means that their points will be doubled.
  • Another player can be selected as a SuperSub—this means that if they start on the bench, they will score triple points once they come on the field.
  • Players selected on the bench are awarded half points

As well as this, there are unlimited transfers between rounds. That means that if you’re not happy with the performance of any of your players, you can simply trade them for another player, providing you have the budget available or they are of similar value.

Considering that players will increase and decrease in value across the season based on their performance, timing your trades can be a crucial element to succeeding in Six Nations Fantasy.

Tips Ahead of Six Nations Fantasy Round Five

With three big matches playing out this weekend, between Scotland vs Italy, France vs Wales and Ireland vs England, here are our top trades we suggest making ahead of Round Five.

Courtney Lawes

England’s big lock returned off the bench against Wales last weekend, for this first time in the Six Nations 2023. Up against France this weekend, expect Lawes to slot into either lock or flanker in the starting line up, and be motivated for a strong comeback to keep England alive in this Six Nations.

Lawes can be picked up for 14.4 stars—not cheap, but also significantly less than his second-row partner Maro Itoje.

Dan Sheehan

Sheehan is the priciest hooker in the game, but for good reason. In Round One against Wales, the big No.2 scored a whopping 58.1 points, with plenty of tackles and meters gained. He’s the most prolific point scoring hooker, and had a good return from injury against Italy last weekend. Considering the match against Scotland will likely be played in tight at times, there should be plenty of opportunities for Sheehan to score given he’s expected to return to the starting line-up in Round Four.

Dan Sheehan can be bought for 15.9 stars.

Paolo Garbisi

Italy’s playmaker was instrumental against Ireland in his return last weekend. The star No.10 will be playing his first Six Nations fixture, after missing the first two rounds due to injury.

Last Six Nations, Paolo Garbisi was pivotal in the Azzurri’s win over Wales. If Italy are to again be a banana skin for Wales in this year’s Six Nations, chances are it will be at the hand of Garbisi again. At 12.6 stars, the playmaker is a great trade to make this week.


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