As the country slowly gets used to different lockdown levels punters will be delighted to note that more and more sporting events are starting to get going again.

We had some live Skins Golf on the weekend and although I didn’t get involved from a betting perspective, I know there were plenty who had a punt. There is also Golf taking place this weekend, something known as the Outlaw Tour and while you won’t recognize many of the names at the top of the betting, if you do your homework there may well be some value to be found.

There is also positive news for English Premier League fans as the sides resumed training this week. I haven’t seen any firm info on matches yet, but no doubt the Bundesliga pattern will be followed where games will take place behind closed doors. On that note I did have a chuckle when a mate of mine told me that the poor ball boys in the Bundesliga really suffered as they had to run up the stands to retrieve balls which would normally be thrown back by spectators.

I touched last week on the New Zealand Super Rugby competition getting going in June and there are now more markets on offer including Top Try Scorer for the various teams. Looking at the Blues their new signing, Beauden Barrett is 11/1 and as he showed in the opening training session he is clearly very fit and we all know how fast he is. At a double figure price I think that Barrett is worth a nibble to score more 5 pointers than his teammates.

There is also betting on who is going to finish bottom in this Tournament and the Highlanders are trading here at 4/6 favourites with the Hurricanes 7/2 and if you are looking to have a punt in the Top Points scorer market, Richie Mounga is 18/10 with Damian McKenzie 33/10 and you then have the Barrett brothers, Jordie at 7/2 and Beauden at 6/1.

Looking at the opening weekends matches, the Highlanders are (+9.5) points at home to the Chiefs and the Blues are narrow favourites at 7/10 to beat the Hurricanes at home and this translates to (-3.5) point handicap.

Hang in there everybody, regular Sports Betting appears to be just around the corner.

Twitter: @BrentGraham.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 21 May 2020.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register