I am heavily invested in the Crusaders to be crowned as Super Rugby champions and needless to say I was less than impressed when they went down to the Cheetahs in week 13.

With only 5 weeks of group action remaining they are still firm favourites at 12/10 but while that should be of comfort to me I am actually very worried as I believe the bookmakers are paying them a bit too much respect.

It is well documented that winning your conference and finishing in the top two on the overall log will be key in that it will ensure a week off and a home semifinal. The Crusaders sit 5 points behind the Blues and they are literally struggling to put a team on the park due to injuries. Yes McCaw and Carter are back (for the time being at least) but with matches against the table topping Reds and conference rivals the Blues still to come I think they are very vulnerable indeed.

By definition if the bookies are too short on a particular team then there must be value elsewhere and for punters less committed to a certain team than me, finding that value represents an interesting challenge.

The Reds are 7/2 and the Stormers and Blues are both on offer at 7/1 with the Sharks and Waratahs 20/1 while the Bulls are a top price of 40/1 to defend the title. 

Of the 3 teams just behind the Crusaders in the betting the Reds price looks about right to me while the Stormers should be 10/1 on current form. The Blues price looks attractive, mainly because bookmakers have them as underdogs in their conference whereas I believe they should be slight favourites there.

The Waratahs I can’t have and the Sharks have not impressed me despite a couple of victories over the Brumbies and Hurricanes at home. How about a bit of Bulls at 40/1 then? They sit 8 points behind the Stormers and 7 behind the Sharks but a Stormers loss in Auckland this weekend and a Bulls win in Durban (neither that unlikely) would see their fate back in their own hands and I would expect odds of about 12/1 next week this time.

So if you have a lazy R50 lying around, the Bulls may just give you a run for your money at very long odds indeed. 

  
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 19th of May 2011.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and presents a sports betting radio show every Thursday night from 22h00 – 22h30 on 1485AM Radio Today or Channel 169 of the DSTV Audio Bouquet and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.

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