While the rugby season may be on pause, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) and the regional teams are keeping the excitement levels high for fans every day of the week in a truly innovative way.
Cardiff Blues, Dragons, Ospreys and Scarlets have partnered with award winning tech startup doopoll (https://doopoll.co) to find out the fan’s ultimate XV from current and past players.
Each day on social media, the regions asked followers and fans to choose their favourite player from each position on the field.
The results have been incredible with the surveys gathering over 50,000 votes in total.
Fans were offered a choice of up to 6 players for each position in each team each day.
The player with the most votes has now been included in the Ultimate XV for each side and were announced live on BBC Radio Wales’ Radio Wales Sport with Gareth Charles and Lauren Jenkins at 2pm on Saturday 18 April 2020.
Closest competition across all the regions came for the Blues at scrumhalf with Tomos Williams edging out Lloyd Williams by only 3 votes.
For the Dragons, the biggest shoo ins were Taulupe Faletau with 76% of the vote, followed by Luke Charteris (62%) and Aled Brew (63%).
The results were discussed as part of the two hour long special by a panel featuring Simon Davies, Nicky Robinson (Blues), Ian Gough (Dragons), James Hook (Ospreys), Phil Davies (Scarlets) as well as doopoll Chief Commercial Officer Steve Dimmick.
Following the success of the surveys, the WRU is planning to run a best of the best this week using the top voted player from each region.
Steve Dimmick said: “At doopoll we’re huge Welsh rugby fans and so to play our part in keeping the fans engaged during a really tough time for the sport is a total honour. We’re proud to have facilitated the regions campaign to find their Ultimate XV and look forward to seeing the wider rugby community follow suit!”
Martyn Bicknell, Head of Marketing at Dragons Rugby said: “This has been brilliant for the regions. As well as giving us a way to engage existing fans, we’ve been able to engage new audiences through doopoll’s high performing survey tool. We’re looking forward to building on the new relationships with fans over the coming months and years.”
