The first of Sunday's Rugby World Cup matches comes from Pool B where New Zealand are overwhelming favourites to run up a big score in their clash with Namibia at the Tokyo Stadium.
New Zealand v Namibia, Sunday 6th October, Tokyo, KO 06:45 (South African time)
Weather Forecast – Tokyo Stadium
Referee: Pascal Gaüzère (France)
Assistant referees: Luke Pearce (England), Shuhei Kubo (Japan)
TMO: Rowan Kitt (England)
New Zealand
The All Blacks look as good as home and hosed when it come to topping this pool. They followed up on a 23-13 win over the Springboks in their opening game (covered a minus handicap of 6.5 points) with a 63-0 hammering of Canada on Wednesday.
The All Blacks had a lengthy break between those matches and they came up just short of the pre-match handicap in the Canada game which had found no shortage of takers at 65.5 points. The first 5 pointer came on 8 minutes and Brad Webber scored 2 of the 9 All Blacks tries. The half time score was 28-0 and the world champions now face a similar type of assignment against Namibia.
In the outright betting the All Blacks are generally 11/10 favourites to win the tournament and should they top this pool as expected they will face the runner up in Pool A which at the time of writing looked most likely to be Japan, Ireland or Scotland.
Namibia
Namibia opened their campaign against Italy a game they lost 47-22 whilst their second outing saw them go down 57-3 to the Springboks.
Namibia were 30 point underdogs for Italy match so the plus handicap was the way to go. Against the Boks the pre-match handicap was set in the high 50's so the plus was also the right call even though Namibia conceded 9 tries and offered little resistence.
Namibia have yet to win a match at the RWC finals in five previous appearances although they came very close in 2015 when they went down 17-16 to Georgia. After this they finish up with a clash against Canada, a fixture they will no doubt have targeted to break their duck.
Line Ups
New Zealand: 15 Ben Smith, 14 Sevu Reece, 13 Jack Goodhue, 12 Anton Lienert-Brown, 11 George Bridge, 10 Jordie Barrett, 9 Aaron Smith, 8 Ardie Savea, 7 Sam Cane, 6 Shannon Frizell, 5 Sam Whitelock (c), 4 Brodie Retallick, 3 Nepo Laulala, 2 Codie Taylor, 1 Joe Moody
Replacements: 16 Dane Coles, 17 Ofa Tu’ungafasi, 18 Angus Ta’avao, 19 Patrick Tuipulotu, 20 Matt Todd, 21 Brad Weber, 22 TJ Perenara, 23 Rieko Ioane
Namibia: 15 Johan Tromp, 14 Lesley Klim, 13 Justin Newman, 12 Johan Deysel (c), 11 JC Greyling, 10 Helarius Axasman Kisting, 9 Damian Stevens, 8 Janco Venter, 7 Thomasau Forbes, 6 Prince Gaoseb, 5 Tjiuee Uanivi, 4 PJ Van Lill, 3 AJ De Klerk, 2 Torsten van Jaarsveld, 1 Andre Rademeyer
Replacements:16 Obert Nortje, 17 Nelius Theron, 18 Johannes Coetzee, 19 Johan Retief, 20 Adriaan Booysen, 21 Eugene Jantjies, 22 Darryl De La Harpe, 23 Janry du Toit
Head to Head
The only meeting between these sides came in London in RWC 2015 and New Zealand won 58-14 (half time 34-6) scoring 9 tries to 1.
A look back into the Goodforthegame archives for that match shows the bookmakers gave Namibia in the region of 78 points start for that clash.
Early Betting – Handicap
New Zealand -70.5 points at 9/10
Namibia +70.5 points at 9/10
Quotes are an average of what was on offer from a selection of bookmakers at the time of writing and are subject to change.
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Betting Angle
This is the biggest handicap of the competition and it is so far in this Tournament the big handicaps haven't arrived. That being said I can’t see anything but a comfortable win for New Zealand and I am going to stick to the Exotic Markets where I like Sevu Reece to run amok amongst the tries and will back him to get the man of the match. He sat out the last game and didn’t really get amongst the action against the Springboks and he will be itching to go over the line and I can see him doing so multiple times.
BET: 1 Unit Reece MOM at 7/1 at Sunbet
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