If you’ve spent years obsessing over FPL budgets, captain picks, and gameweek deadlines, the mechanics of fantasy rugby will feel far more familiar than you might expect. Many features from fantasy football exist in the rugby world across several well-built platforms that are free to play and increasingly polished. Here’s where to start.
Official Six Nations Fantasy
Six Nations Fantasy is built on a salary cap of 230 stars, with a captain scoring double points and a supersub option earning triple if they come off the bench, the core loop is immediately recognisable.Â
The key difference: unlimited transfers between rounds, so there’s no need for the long-term planning FPL demands.Â
Running January to March, it sits neatly outside the most pressurised part of the FPL season and serves as an ideal warm-up for the rugby world making it the most natural entry point for FPL players.
Superbru
If you want something a bit deeper than just international rugby, those who follow the Premiership, URC, Super Rugby Pacific, and the Top 14 rugby table should try Superbru.Â
The format is a squad of 23 with a starting XV selected each round, four to six transfers per round depending on the competition, and wildcard windows after international breaks.Â
The Premiership game runs the full season, making it the closest like-for-like alternative to FPL in the rugby space.
Draft XV and Draft Rugby
Draft XV covers the Premiership and URC; Draft Rugby covers the URC and Super Rugby Pacific and will feel familiar to anyone already playing FPL Draft.Â
Both launched for the 2025/26 season, both use a snake draft format with head-to-head weekly scoring, and both allow trades and waiver wire pickups in place of open transfers.
What FPL Players Need to Know
The core skills transfer directly, but rugby has a few quirks worth flagging before you dive in:
- Budget management, captain picks, and fixture analysis all apply
- Early, smart selection is rewarded with price rises
- Out-of-position players offer hidden value
- Defence scores points: tackles, turnovers, and lineout steals all count
- Some games use rolling lockouts rather than a single weekly deadline
- Test windows thin out club squads mid-season
The learning curve is real, but for anyone already fluent in FPL, it’s a short one.
Ready to Make the Switch?
The learning curve is genuinely shorter than it looks, every platform listed here is free to play, and with rugby’s major fantasy competitions running largely outside the peak FPL months, there’s no reason not to give it a go.
