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Much of the talk over the past 10 days has been around whether or not the Bulls have done the correct thing in resting their team for the final round robin clash against the Stormers in Cape Town last weekend? Many players had not had a break since week 4 when the Bulls had their bye and the coaching staff clearly felt that a rest would both freshen them up and keep them free of injuries ahead of the home semifinal.

But what of momentum, or rather the lack thereof cry those on the other side of the fence. Teams coming off a bye have often struggled to find their rhythm and their opponents the Crusaders will have no such concerns after a convincing win over the Brumbies in Christchurch over the weekend.

There are of course plenty of other factors at play such as the fact that Loftus is not available due to the World Cup and the new “home” is the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, hardly the last bastion of Bulls support.

Also the Crusaders for their part have had to travel back and forth from South Africa twice in a week and were let’s not forget controversially beaten by this weeks opponents in Pretoria just 2 weeks ago.

For Ludeke though the equation is simple. Win and the decision to field a B side at Newlands is vindicated, lose and that over and above all other factors will be thrown in by fans as the reason for defeat.

What do the bookies think?

The Bulls are firm favourites for the match with 9/20 (0.45/1) quoted about them winning the game while the handicap has been set at Bulls -5.5 which means if you take the 9/10 (0.9/1) on offer in this market you need the Bulls to win by 6 points or more. Conversely taking the Crusaders +5.5 means you need them to win, draw or lose by 5 points or less to collect.

Like many other punters I will be spending the next 48 hours weighing up the evidence at hand before making my call as to where my money is going. At this point though I have a feeling that Ludeke will be vindicated rather than vilified!

Read my semifinal previews on www.goodforthegame.co.za

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 20^th of May 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.

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