Coming in from the Side

Quite often the sheer geographical spread of the teams taking part in the Super XV can be enough to ensure that local rivalries are few and far between. Supporters often don't have that much interaction with each other and even within South Africa, New Zealand or Australia, players spend as much time playing together with their country as they do playing against each other with their franchise teams. One clear exception to this is the mutual distaste shared by the NSW Waratahs and the ACT Brumbies in Australia. A real acrimonious rivalry has built up between these two sides over time, so much so that all the talk in advance of their clash on Saturday morning is about how much satisfaction the Waratahs would take from beating the Brumbies and spoiling their season. Certainly Adam Ashley-Cooper did nothing to calm things down when he spoke to the media earlier this week. The ex-ACT star said while NSW now had "nothing to lose", the Brumbies had everything to play for and their ...

All across Britain and Ireland the club rugby scene is done for the year, but the French are only getting down to business now with the Top 14 playoffs really starting to gather steam. The betting indicates that it will be Toulouse and Clermont Auvergne who will contest the Grand Final next week, but previous encounters between Clermont and Toulon have been spicy enough encounters, leading to some controversial comments from Toulon owner Mourad Boudjellal this week. Boudjellal has made himself the centre of attention in the run up to this game by claiming that his team have "no chance" of victory over Clermont on Sunday. "We have no chance of winning it," said the comic magazine magnate. "A victory would more than an exploit (sic). Toulon is far from being favourite while Clermont have shone all season. Come Sunday, we have nothing to lose. No matter what you say, Clermont are in a different economic league than us." Needless to say this has roused the ire ...

League tables that have taken shape over the course of 22 games rarely tell a lie, and as such it does justice to the Aviva Premiership that Leicester and Harlequins will contest the Grand Final at Twickenham tomorrow. These two sides filled the top two slots at the end of the regular season, albeit with Saracens biting at Leicester’s heels, and so a continuation of that trend would see Harlequins lift the trophy this week. That’s not what many pundits are saying and indeed that’s not what the betting market is saying either. Harlequins are easy to back at 2/1 generally, though new players Panbet are offering 5/2 and the betting exchanges are offering a better return again, with layers putting some 11/4 on the table in an effort to draw in money on the Quins. A quick recap of the second meeting of these two sides, Leicester’s 43-33 win at the Twickenham Stoop, would give one indicator as to why the betting is leaning this way. Despite winning by thirteen points at ...

It's been a long but fruitful season for Leinster rugby, and it's fair to say that the province is still basking in the glow of their third Heineken Cup victory, secured last Saturday at Twickenham. The 42-14 dismissal of a good Ulster team in the final was perhaps once of their most impressive results of the whole season, and it says a lot about the scale of the challenge facing the Ospreys this weekend that Leinster produced such a huge effort at the time when they needed it most. However neither can it be questioned that Leinster have now secured the cup they wanted to win and all that remains is to put the cherry on top of a very successful season. On the face of it the players are doing all the right things. Their celebrations were kept sober at the weekend and the real parties have been deferred until after this final. Certainly the lessons of last year when Munster came in and took a little gloss of the Leinster season with a win on the final day, have been borne in mind ...

Much like last year, when our preview of the minor betting markets for the Heineken Cup Final was dominated by a special offer, so it is the case once again this year. Here at Betting.com we like to be neutral, but when a bookie comes up with a refund offer that significantly affects the percentages, then we have to become a little bit one sided. Powers have decreed that if Brian O'Driscoll scores at any time in the game, they will refund all tryscorer bets. O'Driscoll is best priced at 3/1 to score a try at any time (Ladbrokes) while Boylesports are betting as short as 2/1 about a try for the midfield maestro, so it's fair to say that this creates at least a 25% edge for all bets struck with the emerald-coloured Irish betting firm. Of course, now, we have to ask - which are the players most likely to cross the whitewash in a game featuring two very contrasting styles? As we discussed earlier in the week here on betting.com, Ulster will be keen to play an abrasive brand of rugby ...

Leinster's injury issues are all over the news at the moment and speculation is rife throughout the media regarding how the reigning European champions will fare, at centre in particular, on Saturday. Brian O'Driscoll is currently recovering from minor keyhole surgery on his knee, Gordon Darcy needed stitches in his head after the province's battle with Glasgow on Saturday, and Eoin O'Malley is expected to be out for six months after sustaining a cruciate ligament injury. The old pairing of O'Driscoll and Darcy will probably start, but it's far from certain that they will be at full health. However despite all this, Leinster manager Joe Schmidt is entitled to be very happy with the general health of his squad and those looking at Saturday's game from a betting point of view should be similarly satisfied that Leinster are in good shape, or as good as can be expected at this stage of a season that will have included 33 games by the time it's over. Some amount ...

The prospect of an All-Ireland Rabodirect Pro 12 final may have died last night, but the bookmaking firms and the wider betting community still expect the country to be represented in the competition decider, as Leinster are clear favourites to progress in tonight's battle with the Glasgow Warriors at the RDS. However while Leinster have been blessed with relatively good health throughout this season, the effort involved in fighting battles on two separate fronts is taking a toll and perhaps their biggest advantage coming into this fixture was their ability to rest players for the final round of the regular season against the Dragons. Playing at home will of course be welcome, but rest is a valuable asset at this time of year. The handicap betting market this week makes Leinster favourites by either twelve or thirteen points, depending on your bookmaker of choice. The one exception to this rule is Ladbrokes, who bet 10/11 each of two off an eleven point start for Glasgow - so the Magic ...

It says a lot about Munster's longstanding legacy in the Celtic League, or the Rabodirect Pro 12 as it has now become, that they remain so feared by opponents and the betting community alike. Over the course of a long season they ended the year behind the Ospreys in the league table, they are without their two main generals in the shape of Paul O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara, they have to travel to the Liberty Stadium and yet the handicap betting market is very tight, with most oddsmakers giving the Irish province less than a converted try as their head start. However if there is any opponent who won't fear Munster, it's the Ospreys. The Welsh side and Munster have been the kingpins in this competition since its inception, each having won the competition three times, each having made the play-offs since the new competition structure began and neither side ever left the top four this season for good measure. They've played each other 19 times in this competition, with ...

It's fair to say that there won't be too many rugby fans setting their alarms this Saturday morning to take in the Super XV clash between the Chiefs and the Lions in Hamilton. This is one the schedulers definitely got wrong from the point of view of giving the TV audiences an appealing fixture and the pre match handicap betting lines of seventeen, eighteen and nineteen suggest that a big win for the home side could be in the offing. If anything, the betting for this match is a little kind to the visitors. The formlines are clear enough - the Chiefs are on an eight game winning streak, while the Johannesburg-based Lions are on the back of seven defeats in a row. They now face the dreaded trip from West to East, widely acknowledged to be the harder journey to make from the point of view of adjusting, and while the Chiefs have made a lot of changes to their team, they still look to have the power to win this by a twenty-something point margin and to reward those who show faith to the ...

If you were looking for something negative to say about this Sunday's Heineken Cup semi-final between Leinster and Clermont Auvergne, the best you could probably come up with is that it's not the final, and that in itself is a disappointment. If we were looking forward to these two meeting to decide the winner of the tournament, it would probably be talked up as potentially one of the greatest finals in the brief history of this competition. Ironically, it would have to go some way to be one of the best semi-finals, since the meeting of Munster and Wasps in 2004 in Lansdowne Road probably still stands on its own as the high point of the Heineken Cup for most neutral supporters. Still, with the talent on display in both these teams, who could rule out that such a game might happen again? Actually, coming back down to earth for a moment, Saracens would probably be the first to say that for all the hype about this Clermont team and the incredibly creative players in their lineup, defensively ...