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Aussie
Rules
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Centrebet Capers
[Rugby League | RUGBY LEAGUE] Referee Steve Clark copped a “bagging” after the 14-14 draw between Great Britain and New Zealand, but the final score was a fitting result, and has maintained interest in the final Test this week. This was a very big betting League Test, and with England making five significant changes to the side that was humbled the previous week, we thought they would improve. When betting opened, bets of $7500 to win ($1.25) and $7000 (-10½) came for the Kiwi’s, but we reassessed the form and decided to “chase” them in the betting. Moving the handicap into -8½ saw a New Zealander part with $20,000, and an Australian invested $10,000, both bets for New Zealand to beat the handicap. We began to see money also come for the Brits, including $10,000 from Perth, for them to stay within the 8 point handicap. English half back Paul Deacon had a long shot attempt at field goal in the dying seconds to win the match, but it was waved away. While New Zealand can’t lose the Series Trophy, Great Britain can draw the Series with a win this week at Wigan. New Zealand opened at $1.50 (-6½), and although that was taken with “win” bets of $6000 and $3000, both from New Zealand, there hasn’t been a terrible lot of early interest. Perhaps punters are waiting to check weather conditions, but we are expecting some big action on this match on Saturday. [Rugby Union | RUGBY UNION] For the second week in a row, the Northern Hemisphere sides got the better of Australia and South Africa, although the All Blacks managed to salvage a draw against France. The boot of Jonny Wilkinson was the telling difference in England’s one point victory over Australia. The Aussies looked “home” when they led 28-16 in the second half, but the Poms fought back through Wilkinson’s accuracy. Matt Burke had a chance to snatch the game with five minutes to go, but missed a penalty attempt. England started warm $1.48 favourites in the match, with bets coming from all over the world. Some of the more noteable bets were £10,000 for England at $1.50, $12,000 on the same option, $15,000 (from New Zealand) for the English to cover a six point handicap, and a bet of $8000 at $2.90 for England to win by less than 13 points. Big money also came for the Wallabies, including a $20,000 wager from Sydney at +6½ points, and another, also from Sydney, who invested $14,000 on Australia to win at $2.60. The France v New Zealand match ended in a 20-20 draw, the first between these two sides in their 38 match history. France had an opportunity to win the game, but the ball fell over before Francois Gelez could kick it, so he then had to run with it. That was the result we were looking for as we took a big “stand” against New Zealand, who were backed from $2.25 into $2.05. South African punters splurged over $26,000 on New Zealand, and we also saw money from Australia, including $9000 ($2.10) from a Victorian client. The big upset of the weekend was Scotland’s 21-6 win over South Africa. Scotland were $3.50 to win, but only a few bets were placed on them, whereas we took two bets of $5000 (from Australia) for South Africa to beat a 9 point handicap. It was Scotland’s first win in 33 years against South Africa, who really are scraping the bottom of the barrel. It doesn’t look like getting any better for the Springboks this week when they take on England at Twickenham. One their past two defeats, South Africa have no hope of beating England, and it comes as no surprise that the $4.75 for South Africa to win has been ignored. The handicap, 14½ points in favour of England, has been taken by early traders, but we did find one South African, with a $4500 bet, who thinks that the Springboks can stay within that margin. The Wallabies are decimated by injuries, but will get a win against Italy this week. It’s very difficult to handicap these matches, especially in light of Italy’s poor performance against Argentina (beaten 36-6). The Italians could be missing fly half Diego Dominguez, so betting will open Friday after the Italian team is named. New Zealand punters have also been keen to take the odds that the All Blacks will put away Wales this weekend. Lots of single and multiple bets have been taken for a New Zealand win at $1.13, and pretty close to $14,000 has also been taken from that region to say that the All Blacks will “cover” a 17½ point handicap, but they will need to improve on what we have seen recently. [Elections | ELECTIONS] With only a little more than a week to go before the Victorian Election is decided, it is now $1.04, in other words a mere formality, that Premier Steve Brack’s will be returned to office. The Liberals, under Robert Doyle, appeared to be losing popularity with punters anyway, but the “last straw” came when Shadow Treasurer Robert Dean forgot to enroll, therefore eliminating himself from the Election. That debacle, and the associated bad press for the Liberals, has seen Doyle “blow out” from $4.50 to $8 and since last Friday only $20 has come for the Libs. Labor are now into $1.04 after a $15,200 was placed on them at $1.08, followed up by a series of bets “anchoring” Labor with several sports options as a multiple bet. [Cricket | CRICKET] England draw a three day match on docile pitch, and all of a sudden some think they have turned the corner! If you take out the unbeaten 174 runs scored by Robert Key, it was hardly a flattering performance by the rest of the English side, but it does seem to have instilled some confidence in a few at least, as we have seen England attract some support to win the second Test in Adelaide, which begins today (Thurs). The Australians have been backed from an opening $1.42 into $1.40, with all of that money coming from Australians. Three separate $10,000 bets have gone on Australia, and a pile of smaller bets, have been taken, and nobody fancies the draw at $3.50. The last eleven Tests in Adelaide have yielded only one draw, but that followed six straight draws in the late 1980’s, so given the right conditions, it is possible to get a draw. While it’s doubtful that England can win, there is still a massive amount of interest in these Test matches, and with a short priced favourite in Australia which will often deter smaller punters from betting, the focus has been on all the other betting options. One Australian punter thinks that Michael Vaughan will have success with the bat as he has placed $800 on Vaughan to be top English scorer at $4.50, $1500 on Vaughan to outscore Marcus Trescothick ($1.90), and $1500 for Vaughan to outscore Justin Langer, also at $1.90. Matthew Hayden has been the best backed to top the Aussie first innings at $3.50, but home town hero Darren Lehmann isn’t far behind him, now a $7 chance after opening at $8. It has also become increasingly popular to back the Australian batsmen to score 50 or more runs in the first innings, even Steve Waugh! We have the captain at $2.55 to get a half century, and have taken a heap of small bets totaling just under $2000 for that to occur. Bets of $1500 have been placed on Matthew Hayden ($1.90) and Ricky Ponting ($2.10) to also score at least 50 runs, and while there is good confidence surrounding the success of the Australians, practically every bet on the run totals of the listed Englishmen has been for them to be under 30 runs. Matthew Hayden is $6 favourite to be voted “man of the match”, but once again money has arrived from South Australia for Darren Lehmann at $17. The Test players will be out of this week’s Pura Cup matches, but thanks to some exciting recent finishes, and a tight battle at the top of the table, interest has still been maintained. Victoria and South Australia top the table on 14 points, and both will be in action at the MCG. The Vics get Matthew Elliott back for this game, and that’s enough to tilt the scales in their favour at $1.80. We have taken a $2500 bet at that quote, with the same punter placing $4000 on Qld to win at home against Western Australia at $1.50. Some punters are still licking their wounds after South Australia took the points against NSW in a thrilling match last week, but they have stuck solid again this week. NSW venture south to Tasmania, and in early betting, nearly $8000 has been placed on the impressive blues line-up at $1.48. [Golf | GOLF] The Australian Tour starts this week, and while Greg Norman has given the Australian Open a miss, all the other top Australian players will be in action at the Victoria Gold Club, as well as Charles Howell and Rich Beem. This is the first time the Open has been played at the Victoria Golf Club, but it’s worth noting it is the home course of Geoff Ogilvy ($26), who must be rated a strong show. The course is very narrow, and with late afternoon winds always a possibility, “local knowledge” will be a big advantage. Robert Allenby is our $9 favourite, but it is defending Champion Stuart Appleby ($11) who creates the most interest. He is always popular with our punters, but maybe not with Howell and Beem. Appleby criticised the Governing body’s decision to pay appearance money for second rate Americans. Beem teamed up with Peter Lonard to win last week’s Hyundai Tour team event, but then both had to jump on a plane and come to Australia, hardly an ideal preparation! Beem is $21, with no takers, but we have found one punter who thinks Lonard ($17) can win after backing him to win $80,000 as soon as betting opened. Charles Howell ($12) has also been neglected by punters, but the two “gun” Aussies youngsters, Adam Scott ($12) and Aaron Baddeley ($17) have each been backed to take out over $25,000 in early betting. Scott Laycock ($29) is another who must rate highly. He was placed second last year, and won an event in Japan three weeks ago. Phil Tataurangi ($41), Matthew Goggin ($51) and Steve Allan ($67) have each been backed by a New Zealand client to win $20,000 each way, so as you can see, there are plenty of winning hopes in the eyes of punters. In the head to heads, two $5000 bets have gone on Stephen Leaney ($1.85) to defeat Rich Beem, $8000 (from England) has come for Adam Scott ($1.85) to beat Charles Howell and a Queensland client has placed $4000 on Craig Parry ($1.80) to beat Peter Lonard. There are also a couple of good tournaments in Asia this week. Padraig Harrington is the $5.50 favourite to win the Asian Open in Taiwan. This is not a strong field, and the betting has been poor. Jarmo Sandelin ($41) is the defending champion, but punters haven’t warmed to his winning chances. We have laid Brian Davis ($34) and Maarten Lafeber ($41) to lose $15,000, but as we said, it’s been very quiet. Tiger Woods is $2.75 to win the Dunlop Phoenix Open in Japan. This is a star studded field, but has also been on the quiet side. Several of the Japanese players have attracted small support, as has defending champion David Duval ($17), but his recent form has been poor. Tiger looks the winner, but if there was to be an upset, it could come from Justin Rose ($14) who was fourth in last weeks Mitsui Masters. [Soccer | SOCCER] The gods were smiling down on us last weekend when only three English Premier League favourites were able to win. Arsenal ($1.50) were one of those when they disposed of Tottenham, and with the failure of Liverpool and Man United to win, the “gunners” are now into $1.45 to win the title. Chelsea and Newcastle were the other two favourites to win, with Chelsea landing a bet of $16,000 at $1.70 on the way to a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough. Sunday was a “black” day for punters when all five favourites failed to win. A couple were hard to sell, and while we did take a bet of $16,000 for a draw ($3.30) in the Blackburn /Everton match, we didn’t really see any money for the outsider (Everton), who won 1-0. Leeds ($1.50) carried several $10,000 bets to defeat Bolton (lost 2-4), and would have to be the most disappointing side of the season to date. Their loss, and the 0-0 draw between Liverpool ($1.40) and Sunderland “knocked out” nearly every multiple bet taken. A €20,000 bet from Germany also went down with Liverpool, with the same client also dropping €10,000 when Man United ($1.75) could only come away from West Ham with a draw. There has been some significant early action on this weekends round, but there probably aren’t too many surprises in the teams that have been supported. With a fixture of Champions League on next week, we maintain that it’s a good time to take some of these teams “on”, and punters have been very accommodating. Both Man United and Newcastle are still in the Champions League, and are due to play each other in the early game on Saturday. Naturally most have jumped onto the $1.65 for Man United, but we have noticed a couple of astute soccer followers have taken both the $5.25 for Newcastle and the $3.45 for a draw. Arsenal have already “firmed up” from $1.75 into $1.73 in their match against Southampton. Arsenal also play in the Champions League next week, and are away in this weekends match. The $1.75 was taken by a Malaysian client, then we have continued to lay Arsenal at $1.73, including a $7000 bet from Denmark. Liverpool would have been disappointed with last week’s performance as they did dominate against Sunderland, but couldn’t score. Punters think they will atone against Fulham as practically every bet in this match has been for Liverpool at $2. We can report a little bit of early action on Division One as well. A £3000 bet has gone on Crystal Palace ($1.75) to beat Grimsby, £2500 for Reading ($2.10) to defeat Watford, and a Swedish client has placed $4000 on Burnley ($2.45) to beat Norwich. Italian Serie A punters carved us right up last weekend. The “Asian” money was right on target, including $2500 for Empoli ($1.80) to beat Reggina (won 4-2) $25,000 for Lazio ($2.05) to beat Como (won 3-1) and $18,000 for the draw at $3 between Roma and Inter Milan, which ended 2-2. Full of confidence, several punters have got stuck into the upcoming round early in the week. A Malaysian client has placed $15,000 on Chievo ($1.90) to beat Empoli, Juventus have had a wager of €12,500 placed on them at $1.50 to beat Bologna, and there have been two bets from Italy, totaling $7800, for Brescia ($2.35) to defeat Udinese. Until next week, good punting. For further information contact Gerard Daffy at Centrebet on 08 89555800 or on centrebet@centrebet.com
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