I send out a weekly newsletter, generally on a Friday morning and in it I share the Goodforthegame Best Bet for the weekend. I usually tap into the knowledge of the excellent panel that I have on the Rugby Betting Show, THE HANDICAP, which goes out on YouTube live at 21h00 every Thursday and last week was no exception.

There are certainly no guarantees of profits (which is why it is free) but we have been on a bit of a run this year and in recent weeks the Blues and the Force have delivered healthy returns.

This past Friday morning I spent quite a while pondering what the main play of the week was going to be. I fancied France and Scotland to win their matches, away at England and at home against Ireland respectively and both were slight underdogs, meaning I could get better than 1/1 on either bet.

Couch Critic a regular guest on the Thursday night show had a different strategy though and he took a more conservative route in each game taking France (+7.5) and Scotland (+7.5) in a double that worked out at 1/1. I decided to go with this as the play of the week and this meant that France and Scotland did not have to win the game, but just had to avoid losing by more than 7 points.

It turned out to be an excellent strategy as while France looked like winning for most of the match against England, they faded towards the end of the game to lose by 3 points while Scotland started slowly, then came back brilliantly to lead, only for ill-discipline to cost them victory. Both of my fancies had lost but they each managed to stay within the 7.5 points I required and the Best Bet had arrived.

That win helped pull me square on a weekend where my form was up and down and where France’s late capitulation against England had proven costly.

Looking ahead, this weekend is jam packed with Rugby including Six Nations, Super Rugby and the South African Preparation Series. The Preparation Series is not easy to call and I tend to wait for in-running betting opportunities which have proved fairly lucrative to date. I have every intention of getting involved in the other games though so let’s put our heads down and hit those bookmakers hard!

Twitter: @BrentGraham.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 18 March 2021.

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