Don't sweat: here's how to clean up

South Africa's Patrick Lambie would be a good round one choice as captain. Photo / Getty.

Use the doctor’s advice to slice through the confusion and pick a winning squad.

If you feel like you're flying blind into the opening round of our international rugby games, fret not - Dr Stats is here with his tips for all the action kicking off this weekend.

You can certainly be forgiven for feeling a sense of confusion before Saturday morning's opening fixture - there's a wealth of options for your fantasy squad and teams like Georgia and Fiji are rarely seen on television in New Zealand, so tipping them is a difficult proposition.

But I'm here with some game-centric common sense that will help you get your bearings and be competitive this weekend.

We'll start things off with our fantasy game. To get started, you'll have to pick a squad of 22 players. Only 15 of those players will earn you points this round, so you can use the other seven as emergency substitutes or in your planning ahead for round two.

So the first part of that equation involves picking the best possible starting XV and choosing a captain who will have his score for the round doubled.

Analysing the fixtures in a round will always be an important part of finding your best starting XV.

For example, Australia doesn't play in round one, and England, South Africa, Samoa and Wales have favourable match-ups.

Selecting key members from those four teams will probably earn you some big points, and holding off on choosing expensive Australian players for this round may be a wise decision - you can use your precious cash elsewhere.

Your captain will often be a difference-maker in our fantasy games. His points are doubled and, again, match-ups are often the best guide to find him.

So look within those four teams playing against the minnows for your captain. My top picks would include Patrick Lambie, Jesse Kriel, George Ford and Alesana Tuilagi.

Your squad's substitutes will also be very important this round, as some team lists may be announced only after the round has begun.

Remember that you can make transfers right up until the listed kickoff of any fixture, so leaving one or two spare transfers to account for rested stars or last-minute injuries could make or break you.

You could also choose to stack your substitutes with Australian or Scottish players as they will play twice in round two and so will have more opportunity for points.

As far as our tipping game goes, one great place to look for advice is our expert panel.

For round one, none of our experts is tipping any upset results, so margins of victory could be the separator for you and your mates.

With that in mind, five of our seven experts are predicting Samoa to beat USA by a 13+ margin while only 36 per cent of our users currently agree.

Likewise, four experts are tipping Tonga to beat Georgia by a 1-12 margin and three are backing Fiji to keep it similarly tight against England on Saturday morning.