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We’ve hit Round 6 in the Gallagher Premiership and if you had said before the start of the season that this is what the table would look like you’re a damn liar. Sure, Exeter and Saracens sit pretty at the top with 6 straight wins, though Saracens’ perfect start was punctured slightly this weekend as they failed to secure a bonus point against Harlequins. At the other end, Newcastle’s improvement over the past few seasons seems to have faltered, with the Falcons surprisingly sitting rock bottom. Bristol Bears were previously clawing their way up the rungs, but with their first real thrashing coming at the hands of fellow pre-season relegation candidates Worcester Warriors this weekend, the West Country side aren’t looking quite as safe as previously thought. In the middle of the field, a bonus point win could see Bath or Worcester jump straight up into the Top 4, so it’s still very much anyone’s game right now.
But something that certainly isn’t anyone’s game is the RugbyPass Fantasy League. No, this is reserved only for the very elite, those players who have dazzled and thrilled our omniscient, omnipotent algorithm and sacrificed it all on the altar to pay tribute to The Almighty Scout. Lest we incur its vengeful wrath with more stalling, let us join together and bask in the glory of the Team of the Week:
Fantasy League Team of the Week: Round 6
1. Kyle Sinckler (Harlequins)
2. Max Crumpton (Harlequins)
3. Yann Thomas (Bristol)
4. Bryn Evans (Sale)
5. James Gaskell (Wasps)
6. Marco Mama (Worcester)
7. Don Armand (Exeter)
8. Zach Mercer (Bath)
9. Francois Hougaard (Worcester)
10. Danny Cipriani (Gloucester)
11. Bryce Heem (Worcester)
12. Ryan Mills (Worcester)
13. Janse van Rensburg (Sale)
14. Charlie Sharples (Gloucester)
15. Jonah Holmes (Leicester)
*Please note, player positions are determined by The Scout’s statistical analysis and thus may not be accurate
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After briefly dropping down to just two players last week, Worcester Warriors are back once again for the renegade master with 6 players in the Team of the Week, with four in the starting line up and Duncan Weir and Josh Adams on the bench, matching their feat from Round 4. Four Harlequins make the matchday 23, a good return considering how closely they ran the dominant Saracens this week. Perhaps surprisingly, Sale Sharks contribute the same number despite lurking just two points off the bottom of the table, swapping places with basement side Falcons after a victory at the AJ Bell Stadium on Saturday.
The half-backs are unchanged from last week with Francois Hougaard partnering Danny Cipriani as the playmakers of the side. Cipriani hasn’t quite done enough to unseat George Ford in the Team of the Tournament so far, but with the Leicester man not even making the 23 this week it seems perhaps the scales are tipping in favour of the mercurial Gloucester 10.
Speaking of the Team of the Tournament, both Ryan Mills and Charlie Sharples did their overall tournament ambitions no harm with some cracking performances over the weekend, retaining their spots in the starting XV for the league as a whole. There’s a new entrant at full back though, with Jonah Holmes displacing bigger names after a phenomenal showing for Leicester in their East Midlands derby victory over Northampton Saints. As for their opponents, not a single Saint makes the side this week, with the only other sides to rack up this unfortunate stat being the aforementioned strugglers Newcastle and, bizarrely, Saracens.
Player of the Week:
Ignore any accusations of incitement to violence from LL Cool J, Marco Mama is our Player of the Week with 24.2 points in Worcester’s demolition of Bristol including 1 try and a truly astonishing 28 tackles. There’s no word on whether he did the hump, did the hump-hump but if he’s in your Fantasy League Team you might want to Take Your Mama out for a drink to thank him for his performance this weekend.
