I was fired up for the start of the Six Nations Rugby this past weekend, however due to the fact that I was playing in a poker game and wouldn’t be able to watch the Saturday matches I decided to keep my betting interest to a minimum.
One bet that absolutely stood out on the weekend was under 5.5 tries in the England v Scotland game. The weather was poor and Scotland were likely to be far more competitive than they have been in recent seasons.
The bet was highlighted by some of the shrewd punters on the Goodforthegame Forum, but by the time I got to it the price had shortened to 7/10. I could have just lumped my bet down at that price, but instead (and in typically greedy fashion) I looked around for another event to add into a double to boost the odds.
Pakistan were batting in their second innings against South Africa and were 3/10 to win the match at that point. I couldn’t see the Proteas coming back to grab a victory so added this 3/10 boosting my bet to total odds of 1.2/1 or 12/10.
The tries bet arrived in a manner which made me wish I had just taken a massive bet on it directly especially when Pakistan faltered in their 2nd innings. They recovered to set the Proteas 370 to win and I was mentally banking the cash.
The Proteas then suddenly found the application that had deserted them in this Tour and at one point looked likely to pull off a miraculous run chase. They were travelling so well that when Markram went to an untroubled century I mentally unbanked the cash and basically wrote the bet off.
I had plenty of work to do and could not focus on the game at all until around lunch time here in SA. Taking a break I switched the TV on to see the Proteas 7 down and in the midst of one of their famous batting collapses. They were bundled out and while part of me felt sorry for the team and their long-suffering fans, I was delighted to collect on my bet.
This put me into profit for the weekend as my other big play was on Ireland to win against Wales and a crazy Red Card in the 14th minute ensured that bet fell short.
Twitter: @BrentGraham.
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 11 February 2021.
Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register