Fantasy updates and the Easter weekend

There have been a few questions about what happens over the congested Easter period, if there’ll be a transfer window in the middle? Well the short answer is, as in recent years, yes. We’ll have a window that opens after the first round of games is played and then closes on Easter Monday with the second round, giving you Saturday and Sunday to make changes. There’ll be a little difference though to the normal week with how points are allocated.

Updates

But first how we process our updates. Everything runs automatically, about 24 hours before the final window close anyone with pending changes is sent an email to prompt them to save the changes. Then once the last game has kicked off all of the team selection data for everyone is backed up and frozen for scoring. At this point there’s a little wait for us to check all the match data, unfortunately, even at the Super League level rugby league reporting often gets it wrong and so we go through all the team line ups and scorers, unfortunately we don’t have reporters at every game to verify the information live. We then update the man of the match information for both teams and off the updates go again. First saving every players score and then processing all the substitutions for anyone who hasn’t played. Lastly we update users points and update the rankings table. That process happens for both competitions.

The only little difference to points over Easter comes as a consequence of using the wider rugby league press to get Man of the match allocations, the first round of Easter fixtures will be processed and scored without those points. They’ll be added along with the scoring for the second round of games. (We’ve always used League Express to get our Man of the Match points and continue to this season) 

Super League scorers

So Easter could be a big scoring weekend, especially with the chance to make two sets of changes in a short space of time. Do you look for teams going big for both games? Or keep an eye out for teams who might rest players for one of the games? In previous years a Leeds v Wakefield Easter Monday game would be a consideration for some player absences but with the Rhinos short on wins they maybe looking for maximum points rather than easing off the gas.

Current league leaders Widnes with their attacking play have been high scorers in the competition with kicker Rhys Hanbury still leading the points chart but Easter sees a tough couple of fixtures against Warrington and Saints after a game against Wigan this Thursday. Could it be time to look elsewhere for game points?

Championship competition

The Championship sees a week off this week for the Challenge Cup but will return with the same transfer window in the middle as the Super League game. League leaders London aren’t the hot bed of points that you would expect, instead it’s Bradford with four of the top ten points scorers who are leading the way in the fantasy competition.