All Blacks to the wall?
You have peaks, you have troughs and then you have the current England rugby team. After a disappointing performance against Australia, Sporting Index predicted that the game against South Africa would be incredibly tight and were "pick 'em" on the spreads. Buyers of the Springboks would have been partying well into the night after the World Champions inflicted England's heaviest ever defeat at Twickenham (42-6). It's been a baptism of fire for new coach Martin Johnson, but at least he has the easy task of preparing his side for the arrival of the All Blacks on Saturday.
The Sporting Index traders currently have New Zealand as 19-22 point favourites in this game and their supporters will be encouraged that the Kiwis have won all of their last 16 away games played in the northern hemisphere. They have done this by an astonishing average points supremacy of just over 27 points and have only conceded two tries in the last seven games, with none conceded in their last four. All Blacks followers on the spreads will take slightly less encouragement that although their side have won all six meetings against England since the 2003 World Cup, their average points supremacy is 21.83 which is covered by the spread.
England must feel like they've just been knocked out by Joe Frazier and have to step into the ring with Muhammed Ali, except that there will be 15 angry men dancing and pulling faces. However, spread bettors selling All Blacks supremacy will be more pleased that England have only ever lost thee consecutive matches at Twickenham one time in the professional era (against Ireland, New Zealand and Argentina in 2006). Although the realists who see New Zealand as guaranteed winners will take further confidence from the fact that England have only won three of their last 10 autumn internationals (not including their recent game against the Pacific Islanders), with one of those wins coming against the relative minnows, Samoa.
The other big rugby game for the spread betting public to get their teeth into is Wales against Australia at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. The Dragons have put up two spirited displays in the past few weeks, only losing by five points to the Springboks and restricting the All Blacks to a 20-point winning margin last weekend. The Sporting Index traders have reacted by giving the Aussies a 3-6 point supremacy spread and sellers would have made a profit in two of the last three meetings between the nations on Welsh soil. In 2006, the sides fought out an epic 29-29 draw, whilst a year previously Wales inflicted their only victory against the Aussies in the last 14 meetings by a 24-22 point margin. However, buyers of Aussie supremacy only have to go back just over a year for when their side won 32-20 in Cardiff in the World Cup to get the spring back in their step.
The Premier League action on will mean those who like a spread bet will be glued to their sets during the two big Sunday games. Starting off with the Manchester Derby at 1.30pm and Man United are the clear favourites to win the game (supremacy spread 0.8-1), but sellers have the added incentive that City (along with Chelsea) are one of only two teams to have a winning record against the champions since 2002/03 (W5-D3-L4). Another string to the sellers' bow is that the last three City managers (Eriksson, Pearce and Keegan) all beat Sir Alex's side at their first attempt at home, whilst Mark Hughes also beat his mentor in his first game against them at Ewood Park as Blackburn boss.
It's not all bad for those siding with United on the spreads though, as City would have to be the first team since Southampton in 2001 to register consecutive league victories against the Big Four. Another boost for those buying United with Sporting Index will be United's record on the road after failing to win any of their last three games. In the last 10 years they have won 11, drawn one and lost one of such games.
Hot on the heels of the Manchester derby is Arsenal's trip to Chelsea and sellers of the Blues' supremacy at 1 will be hoping that Arsenal's poor away record against the Big Four continues. Since their unbeaten 2003/04 season, they have only won three of 17 games at their main rivals and they all came two seasons ago. Spread bettors have counted the cost of writing off the Gunners in the past though and under Wenger, Arsenal have won three away games at the Big Four having lost their previous game. They have also only failed to score once in 19 games across all competitions against the Big Four, while Chelsea have conceded in all of their last five home games at home to the top sides — a fact that will not be missed by the spread betting goal punters.
A number of you who play the bookings market on the spreads won't need reminding about the make-up of the Carling Cup Final two seasons ago when three players were sent off in the 90th minute for an astonishing total of 145. It will therefore come as no surprise that the average make-up in the past five games is 76 points per game, of interest to those buying Sporting Index's spread of 56-60. The referee in charge of Sunday's game is Mike Dean and sellers will be alarmed that 'Card Happy Dean' has the highest match average for bookings points this season (52.1). Since 2006/07 he has issued red cards in just under a quarter (16) of his 65 games.
The Hennessy Gold Cup, one of the biggest races of the National Hunt season, gets underway at 2.40pm at Newbury on Saturday. Spread bettors who have sold SP's in recent years haven't done too badly as there has only been one double-priced winner in the last five renewals. Horses towards the top of the handicap have prospered recently with all of the last three carrying more than 11st and two of the past three winning off top weight. Playing winning distances on the spreads can be a dangerous pursuit at Newbury and is obviously weather dependent. Denman turned this into a precession last year, winning by 11 lengths, whilst Strong Flow five years ago won by an ever-increasing 14 lengths.
Bill Esdaile of Square in the Air Communications, a former sports trader, spread betting specialist and self confessed stats addict, casts his eye over this weekend's sport and shares his views on some of the trades available. Please note these are his views and are not the views of Sporting Index.
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