Round 7

Looking back on last week’s predictions were a real eye opener as it seemed that everything fell into place; with nearly all of my original thoughts being correct including predicting a Wakefield victory despite the Wildcats starting the game in double figures! One day I might grow the fortitude to trust my instincts (and remove the painful splinters from my bottom). Of course however, much of my success is down to randomness so I fully expect to have a couple of weeks where I get everything wrong; much like how I sometimes rate a team higher after a defeat than a victory. So without wanting to get everything wrong, let’s quickly look to this week’s games.

The big game of the week is the Friday night televised game between Wigan and Warrington which sees the two best sides in the competition go head to head. Usually in such games, my feelings towards home advantage automatically sways me to the visiting side, but yet again it seems that, contrary to history, the market is underrating Wigan significantly.

Let me make it clear, the best value should be found in play but I cannot understand why the reigning champions who have been very good this season should only be 1.75 favourites. Whilst they are missing some regular players, they have shown the strength in depth to cope with all but the worst injury crisis, and their opponents should not be over-estimated based upon a thrashing of an average side.

It certainly looks like the market is overreacting to Warrington’s impressive scoreline last week but once the match starts, that counts for nothing.

The other Friday night game sees St Helens host Bradford and Mick Potter return to his former club. I have been underwhelmed by Bradford this year whilst St Helens looked a different side last week once they fielded a 13 man team. The market therefore looks right for this game but if I had to choose, I would prefer the potential reward of the underdogs.

That is also true in the Saturday night game in France where Catalans are 1.4 to defeat a Salford side coming off an impressive victory last week. I’m not ready to buy into Catalans just yet and whilst their recent performances have been more impressive than I anticipated, I would not treat them as sub 1.5 favourites for any game.

The televised Saturday game sees two sides who lost as 1.5 favourites last week when Huddersfield travel to Hull KR. My gut feeling is that Huddersfield, at 1.6, are too short. That said, it is hard for me to piece together a convincing reason to back Hull KR. The best I could possibly do is to expect the Robins to look to kick start their season in front of the Sky cameras with a home crowd desperate for their side to live upto the hype but that is a weak argument!

Moving onto Sunday and Leeds v Wakefield looks to be appropriately priced. Whilst Wakefield are coming off a victory, Leeds impressed last week and are significantly the more talented side. Given Wakefield’s young squad, I expect two victories to be too much to string together.

The most intriguing game is Hull travelling to Harlequins in a game where I’d almost favour both sides to lose. Harlequins started the season very well but were woeful when losing 82 – 6 last week whilst Hull have only one victory all season and lost at home to Wakefield last week.

There is no doubting that Hull are the more talented side, significantly so on paper. However, they look to be in free fall whereas Harlequins’ loss was more likely to be a blip and a result of an average squad simply having little more to give. I therefore cannot agree with Hull being favourites, although given the potential variance in Hull’s performance level, whether Harlequins’ price is worthy of constituting value is questionable.

The final game on Sunday is Castleford hosting the Crusaders. I mentioned last week of Castleford possibly doing a Hull and if the Crusaders can produce their form from Round 1, they do have the ability to secure a shock victory. That said, the current odds look about right although like Saints v Bradford, if I had to choose, it wouldn’t take long to decide.