The Rugby Issue

Anyone getting off the line like that and smashing RG Snyman deserves a regular international test spot💥

@francisaac87 An unbelievable player! One of the stand out backrows in the RWC23. Well deserving of a shot in the big leagues because every time he has had it internationally, he has produced

It still isn't a done deal, but a few Top14 clubs are targeting Nicolás Martins, with Racing taking the lead🇵🇹 A superb flanker who deserves a new shot at the top! P.S. If you are only relying on some 'stats' to say he isn't good, it just tells me you are a knob Read in here

@RugbyVous @HuwGriffinRugby Wow, a scrum half with most passes and kicks in a game! Impressive stuff 🤩

21 year old Stade Francais scrum-half Thibaut Motassi against Toulon 🧑‍💻 80 minutes 58 metres 🥇 23 passes 🥇 11 kicks 🥇 7 carries 3 offloads 🥇 2 defenders beaten 2 turnovers won 1 try assist 1 line break 1 try 1 yellow card 🤭 100% tackle success Not ANOTHER French nine?! 🇫🇷

How is this based solely on six nations form and 4 English players are in the team? 😂 Swap Freeman for Baloucoune (based on Freeman being 13), Genge for Carre and Kinghorn for Osborne. Flip of a coin between wainwright and Conan as well as Fagerson and Hayes. Real question is how many captains and vice captains do we have here?!

🦁 Any changes to this British & Irish Lions XV?

@haribaldijones @BlueBullsRugby @Munsterrugby 2 a piece in the head to head! Going to be an exciting game but Munster need to up the standard from last week

Last time I saw ⁦@BlueBullsRugby⁩ play ⁦@Munsterrugby⁩ it ended like this:

@URCOfficial @dragonsrfc I don’t think he had any care about the switch😂 He was hitting SFM regardless to unsettle him after the early moments of brilliance

This clip? 👀 @DragonsRFC said, "not today" 🙅‍♂️

One of the key things highlighted in the figure for me is the three years in a row with no grand slam. The joint highest in six nations history. I think this demonstrates the competition is in a really healthy state. Any team can beat anybody else on their day- the way any exciting tournament should be! Sure, everybody loves to see their team dominate and secure the GS but it should not be as easy or frequent as it was in past years. #6Nations #GuinnessM6N

@patmccarry @Ian_madigan @TheSundayIndo What a great player and servant to Irish Rugby over the years🙌🏼

Was great to catch up with my old podcast buddy, @Ian_madigan recently, ahead of his 'comedy roast' debut Has been great to see him develop into one of the best pundits out there 🎙️ Online version of our @TheSundayIndo chat 👇 independent.ie/sport/rugby/ia…

'The final whistle of the French game, confirmed what I believed in myself, leading into the World Cup. The realisation of this belief - that I'd be good enough to step up if Johnny did get injured - hit different. Those images were the outpouring of emotion that came with that'

@JohnBFergo Definitely, Australia has struggled with consistency in this department over the years too. Probably never replaced Michael Lynagh in this space (maybe early years O’Connor)

@TheRugbyIssue The goal kicking is a genuine factor as well for higher honours.

Sid Harvey is shaping as a hell of a player. I chatted to him on Saturday night to get his reflections on the game and his performance. Safe ti say he is a livewire with ball in hand. Catch the full ep on the Off The Ruck YouTube channel! 👇 youtu.be/iYuf9HE1T7s?si…

Not sure if these are the appointments Quinn’s fans would have hoped for. Jason Gilmore steps in to the head coach position following his questionable results as the defence coach. Seems like a good guy so let’s hope he can turn things around as he takes up the head job. Robbie Deans will have a big job ahead of him in steering the club back towards league and European ambitions #Harlequins #Rugby

Neff Giwa of @cashelrugby is a hot prospect in elite college football in the states following a viral clip demonstrating his physical prowess. Having represented Ireland u18 clubs and schools in 2022, did Munster fumble the bag with securing and developing this young athlete? #Rugby

If Spain get a shot at top flight club rugby before Georgia, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Georgia call it quits. They have been banging down the door for that opportunity for so many years and haven’t been given a second thought. The noise was not unjust given their long-time dominance in second-tier Rugby while Italy (historically) demonstrated sustained struggles in tier one. Allowing a Spanish team in ahead of the black lions could be the final straw for Georgia.

@AllBlacks @jaredwright17 Not sure this is a World Cup winning ticket😬

Locked in and ready to take your team through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup 🔒🇳🇿

@simonrug 😭

@TheRugbyIssue no to all those

By touching down against Leinster on the weekend, Glasgow scrum-half George Horne became the eighth player to score 50 tries in the URC in its various guises. Fancy having a go at naming the other seven?

We are talking about rugby so while relevant to Fantasy as a whole it is important that direct competitors are sport-specific to consider the nuances around team selection and like you say, late withdrawals. Other competitors in the fantasy rugby space are in super rugby and 6 nations fantasy. Both of which allow continual changes up to kick off and both of which see far less complaints in conversations and online about the UX. Point taken on late changes but these are rare, people busy work schedules are not. So you favour accomodating the off chance of a late change to be fair to Timezone differences over the garunteed late team release and limited selection timeframe to accomodate the majority of your player-base. Why don’t you say it as it is, late changes causes more operational stress ye have to manage which ye are unwilling to do. You want to lock it in and just focus on updating stats (which is likely automated). While I am admittedly frustrated and certainly not the most pleasant query to deal with right now- your responser and their tone reinforce the fact that customer and user experience is not a big factor in your app. That is fair enough and I will continue to play out of lack of competition. However, for long-term success in Rugby I’d suggest ye take customer feedback on board because as is, as soon as a competitor comes for these leagues- im out and I can garuntee you many of your existing users will jump ship too.

Firstly, it's not true that every other fantasy app successfully allows customers to change out any players post-deadline. Many don't, including the most successful one (FPL). We've done surveys to gain feedback on this previously and ironically, it's because of people having jobs and other life commitments that we opt against post-deadline changes. People play fantasy rugby from all around the world meaning time zones are a big factor, as is having other life commitments. Many therefore consider the ability to make late transfers an unfair advantage. For instance, if there's a late team change 10 minutes before a fixture, those who happen to be watching the match can react but that's not necessarily fair on other users who don't happen to be available and online at that very moment. Having a set deadline will always be tricky for some users of course, but we like to think it's as fair as we can make it as people at least know when the deadline will be (first kick-off) and can try and plan things accordingly.

Superbru has to be the worst UX of any app in sports. You have a two hour window when final teams are announced for the weekend before you’re locked in with random team. If you are restricted to 4 transfers, there’s no grace to make an educated guess so you have to wait for official teams. Yet they double that with the time crunch from final announcement to kick off. God forbid people actually have jobs @Superbru fix your shit! #FantasyRugby

I appreciate you upload the teams when you can but what is the purpose of locking these at the time of the first kick off? Again, people work 9-5 (some later) and aren’t always available to go back and make these changes and final picks last minute. Despite the unlimited transfers this week, you still want to make savvy decisions here which will limit transfers in the coming weeks of restrictions. I don’t see any benefit in forcing people to lock in their teams when every other fantasy app successfully allows customers to change out any player whose team has not yet kicked off. Overly restrictive and inflexible for the vast majority of your player-base with jobs and other life commitments.

Hey @TheRugbyIssue, sorry we didn't see this on Friday. Were you referring to URC Fantasy with the earlier than usual deadline of 17:00 UK? If so, appreciate time was therefore tighter than usual this week but we can't control team announcement times or indeed kick-off times 😃 All lineups were confirmed on Superbru by 12:15pm which we think is decent considering most were announced at midday so the window you refer to was just under 5 hours. We did what we could by sending out push notifications at 12:30 too. Of course, players don't have to wait for team announcements before saving their team, but clearly it's advisable to make changes post-announcements. Usually you only get a limited number of free transfers, yes, though this past week specifically had wildcards for both PREM and URC following the long Six Nations break.

@AjcRugby Agreed but her stats are from FB so not sure England coaches will go for that. I also think Millie David shouldn’t be slept on. She was a try scoring machine (joint highest in prem) in her breakthrough season which earned her breakthrough player of the year.

@TheRugbyIssue I think we could move Sing to the wing (that rhymes) Her stats & performances are way better than Claudia & Jess at the moment

Done some digging into the stats for the main 4 back 3 options for the Red Roses *Using PWR stats. Dividing total point by total mins then timing by 80’. Sing 39.81 Kildunne 23.75 Moloney-MacDonald 21.48 Breach 19.22 A few caveats. - Sing takes all the GH goal kicks

@scrumming_ten Very true but I think it would be hard to claw him away from Scottish Rugby. They’ll have him earmarked as Townsend’s immediate replacement

Franco Smith has made every player in the Glasgow Warriors squad believe that they are world beaters Even the extended squad players play with confidence I hope he coaches the Springboks one day 🇿🇦