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 Punters are generally a superstitious bunch and over the past months I have developed a phobia around Friday night Currie Cup betting. {readmorelink}Read more{/readmorelink}
There is always a live match to kick start the weekend and I look forward to it from the moment the betting is out. This season though Friday nights have been anything but kind to me and I generally found myself giving the bookies a nice lead heading into the weekend.
I had already begun to wonder if some sort of a punting curse was at play when the Bulls hosted the Leopards 6 weeks ago. They were massive favourites and I climbed in backing them to win by more than 35 points. They not only failed to beat the handicap but they nearly lost the game and I cut a grumpy figure at my sons Saturday morning soccer.
The week before last I was convinced the spell was broken having gone for the Sharks against the Pumas. I needed them to win by more than 18 points and to score loads of tries in doing so. After 20 minutes they had 4 tries and looked on the verge of handing out a hiding when inexplicably they failed to score another 5 pointer despite dominating all aspects of the next 60 minutes.
By now many of those that I talk betting with on the Goodforthegame website were trying their best to avoid me on Friday evenings and I can imagine they were more than a little concerned that my Best Bet calling for WP to beat the Pumas by 19 or more kicked off on a Friday night.
I really fancied the blue and white stripes but with the curse still very much in play I considered scaling back on my bets. Rather than to hide from my weekly beating though I decided to stare fate in the eye and climbed in with larger than usual plays defying the Friday night jinx to come and get me.
I have seldom been so nervous before a match and even when WP started well I was worried so when the Pumas reduced the deficit in the 2nd half a cold sweat overcame me, would I be crying myself to sleep again? Fortunately though Province kicked on as I had hoped they would resulting in one of my better wins and hopefully banishing the Friday Night Curse forever!
Betting previews for the weekends Currie Cup games will be posted in our RUGBY SECTION
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 23rd of September 2010.
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”..
You can follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/brentgraham or get on his mailing list by dropping him a line at brent@goodforthegame.co.za
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