MyWheelName.com Guides

Rugby Tournament Team Draws

By My Wheel Name TeamPublished July 25, 20262 min read

Rugby is unusually well suited to a sweepstake. The tournaments are short, the fields are small, and everyone in the room ends up with a team they actually have to watch.

Three different draws

The site covers three rugby wheels and they behave differently enough to be worth choosing between.

  • The Six Nations, with England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales, runs across five Saturdays in spring and is the classic office sweepstake.
  • The Rugby Championship covers New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and Argentina, whose four nations have won the large majority of Rugby World Cups between them.
  • Rugby internationals covers the wider international field for the mid year tours and end of year tests, where the draw is genuinely wide open.

Six teams is the right size for a sweepstake

A six team draw means most offices have more people than teams, which is the ideal ratio. Everyone gets a real contender, nobody gets a hopeless outsider, and the whole tournament stays live for most participants.

The vocabulary helps too. Win all five matches and it's a Grand Slam. A home nations side beating the other three takes the Triple Crown. Finish last and you've taken the Wooden Spoon, which is entirely real in the banter economy even though no spoon exists.

The Rugby Championship is a faster draw

With only four teams the wheel resolves almost immediately, which makes it better for settling a single argument than for running a large sweepstake.

If you want more variability, save a custom wheel combining all ten nations from both tournaments. It's a two minute setup and gives you a draw with genuine range.

Running the draw

A rugby sweepstake in four steps

  1. Pick the tournament wheel: Six Nations for a spring sweepstake, Rugby Championship for the southern season, or the internationals wheel during tour windows.
  2. Turn on Remove Winners: So each participant draws a different nation and the field is covered evenly.
  3. Spin on a shared screen: Full Screen Mode on a projector or screen share. A witnessed draw is what stops the questions afterwards.
  4. Record and post the results: Screenshot the assignments and put them somewhere everyone can see, since a five week tournament outlasts everyone's memory.

Pick the tournament, spin once per person, and agree the tiebreak before the first whistle. Rugby sweepstakes work because five Saturdays is exactly long enough to care and short enough to stay interested.

Questions, answered

What is a Grand Slam in the Six Nations?

Winning all five of your matches in a single championship. A home nations side that beats the other three claims the Triple Crown, a separate trophy contested inside the tournament, and the last placed team takes the Wooden Spoon.

Which rugby wheel suits a sweepstake best?

The Six Nations, because six teams against a typical office size means everyone gets a genuine contender. The Rugby Championship has only four teams, which resolves too quickly for a large group.

Can I combine the two tournaments?

Yes. Save a custom wheel with all ten nations from the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship. It takes a couple of minutes and gives a draw with far more range than either alone.

How are teams separated if they finish level on points?

The Six Nations uses points difference. If your sweepstake pays out on final position, agree that rule before the tournament starts rather than arguing about it on the final weekend.

What does the rugby internationals wheel cover?

The wider international field for the mid year tours and end of year test windows. World Rugby rankings shift after every test, so a side that looked like an outsider last year may not be one now.