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 My main focus was on the 6 Nations this past weekend and both my long term bet on Ireland and my handicap bet on England came home to deliver some handy profits.
For the first time this year nothing on the Super 14 coupon really jumped off the screen at me but the same cannot be said for the 6 Nations where I made England -12 at 19/20 with Sportsbet a solid bet* against Scotland. The Scots started strongly but as the first half wore on so England began to dominate and but for some brilliant defense they should have wrapped up the handicap by the break. They didn’t though and through a succession of penalties Scotland were able to stay in touch and with minutes remaining England led by 9. I was travelling to watch the Ireland match but was desperate for news (for a punter there is nothing worse than having a bet down but not knowing what is happening) and phoned Brendan the guy who had convinced me to back Ireland before the tournament began. He had also backed England in this match and announced with some trepidation that an uncontested scrum on the Scottish 22 was our last chance. I listened closely as he described the passage of play over the phone before shouting “England have scored, they’ve done it” in an almost schoolgirl like manner. They had left it late but as my mate Dave alluded to later there is no comments column, the bet had arrived and I had gone for a solid 10 unit strike on it in the end. I had also backed Ireland to win 52 units before covering my stake ahead of the week 4 matches. With Ireland winning not only the title but their match against Wales I was nicely in the money with a nett profit of 43 units on them after writing off my Wales and France cover bets. I did have a few punts in the Super 14 and managed to scrape a profit thanks to the Crusaders and Chiefs and overall I made 53.5 units in the rugby on the weekend Things did not go well in the cricket where I backed Australia to wrap the series up 3-0 a bet that was in trouble from the start. I also had a nibble on the Proteas getting less than 350 in their first knock with Great Odds who offer this market in running and my nett loss on the cricket was 11 units. The Transitions Championship golf looked very good for me at one point with Steve Stricker seemingly on course for the win or at least a playoff but he finished bogey bogey to drop into a 3 way tie for 4th and while I did get some place returns the dead heat rules meant it was only 3.5 units and I ended up making a 4 unit loss on the golf. My preview of this weeks PGA Tour event will be posted on Wednesday sometime and I am starting to get very excited ahead of the years first major, The Masters which is just around the corner. I posted a thread in our discussion forum on the Milan San-Remo cycling and had a couple of small bets with Great Odds amazingly backing both the second (Haussler) and third riders (Hushovd) home at 14/1 and 12/1. That was not good enough though and a 3 unit loss accrued. On the long term front I have written off 1.5 units which I had on Juventus for the Champions League and I was less than impressed with Chelsea for failing to take advantage of Manchester United’s slip up at Fulham. BETTING SUMMARY
Balance after week 10: +88.89 units
Week 11 result: +34 units
Running balance: +122.89 units Pending Premier League: 30 units (Chelsea win 20, Hull last 10)Champions League: 8 units (Chelsea win 2, any English team 6)
Golf: Race to Dubai: 30 units (10 wins Garcia and 20 places Garcia) PSL: Ajax (5 units at 2/1) Super 14: 60 units (Sharks Top SA, Brumbies Top Aus, Hurricanes Top Kiwi, Cheetahs for last, Sharks and Canes to win, a match bet treble Lions/Cheetahs, Reds/Highlanders, Sharks/Blues) *BEST BET Get my best and value bets each week – simply drop me a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za and I will add you to the list and you can also follow me on http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham Finally you can take a look at my early thoughts on the week 6 S14 handicaps in our discussion forum in the thread titled “S14 calling the results”
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