I send out a weekly e-mail with my best bet for the weekend. It is usually a Rugby Bet and often isn’t my selection, but one or more of the panel on my Thursday night Rugby Betting Show “The Handicap”.

Last week we agreed that the Sharks over 36.5 points looked a good bet against Griquas. By Friday morning this line had moved to 38.5, but I had another bet in mind and waited patiently. The Sharks were massive favourites and I knew they would be pushing for a bonus point and had heard reports that they would be kicking for the corners rather than going for posts early on.

I was pleasantly surprised when the Sharks were priced at 12/10 to score 6 tries or more in the match. Based on what I have seen of Griquas this season I expected this line to be at least a try higher or the price a lot shorter. I climbed in and on suggesting it as a Best Bet in the newsletter I was confident enough to say it came with “Graham’s Guarantee” and that the price would move in our favour. And move it did.

Within minutes of the e-mail going out the price went 11/10 and before the long the line moved from 5.5 tries to 6.5 tries with over 6.5 tries at 17/20. There is no doubt plenty of punters agreed with my logic and followed me on that one.

It is a strange feeling when the market moves in your favour because you get this satisfaction almost as though you have already won the bet. Unfortunately though the hard work is still to come and it became clear early on that the Sharks pitched up for this game not expecting to do any hard work, but just to run in tries freely.

Griquas though had other ideas putting in a sound defensive performance and a brilliant kicking display by De Beer saw the Sharks on the back foot for most of the match. They did have 15 good minutes in the second-half where it looked as though my bet stood a chance, but in the end they were fortunate just to win the match and I went to bed on Friday night with a timely reminder that spotting the value is all well and good, but what really counts is winning the bet.

Twitter: @BrentGraham.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 19 November 2020.

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