Posts Tagged ‘NFL’
March mayhem continues today and tomorrow with another full round of national league games taking place in both codes. Competitive hurling fixtures are few and far between this week, with the meeting of Cork and Waterford likely to be the only high profile fixture where a straightforward win for the favourites isn’t widely anticipated. There will probably be a few nervous Wexford supporters in advance of their trip to Dr Cullen Park, but for competitive bets this weekend, it’s definitely the big ball code that has a lot more to offer us.
Being honest, ever since the results from last week, Off the Ground was keeping an eye out for one fixture out of this weekend’s football matches that dripped with the potential for good value. To my immense shock and not inconsiderable disappointment, the bookmakers actually ignored history, tradition and all that stuff, and appeared to have more or less priced the game accurately.
I refer to the NFL division two encounter between Tipperary and Meath this weekend. The bookmakers have a ridiculous track record of overestimating Meath, underestimating Tipperary and failing to appreciate the importance of home advantage to the Royals – and of course the converse to that argument, which is quite how poor they are away from the familiar surroundings of Páirc Tailteann. Being truthful, I fully expected to examine this week’s prices, note a 7/2 or 3/1 beside Tipperary, circle it and advise a very large investment. Instead, a much more moderate 7/4 has been chalked down. Still good, but much shorter than it would have been even a year ago, despite both sides being more or less the same.
So far this year, Tipperary have played very competitively against Laois, struggled against a much more powerful Kildare team and secured an excellent draw in Newry. Meath scraped home against Armagh despite conceding three more scores than they took themselves, struggled in Newry and almost got nabbed by an understrength and woefully off-form Westmeath outfit.
Usually by the end of round three, the betting for the National Football Leagues begins to look a lot simpler. In most divisions, as many as three or four counties would normally be out of the running by now, but unusually this season, very few counties are out of contention while equally, very few are still safe from the drop – notwithstanding those counties playing division four football.
Taking a helicopter view and looking down at division one first, Cork head the betting at 11/10, but this column can only speculate that there must have been plenty of money laid down on the Munster champions because this is a very short price, factoring in the football we’ve seen so far. They scraped home against Monaghan, beat a Kerry team that was very much in pre-season mode and very nearly let a huge lead slip against Galway last Saturday night on their home turf. Cork undoubtedly have ample quality, but Conor Counihan and most of the Cork supporters will know that to even win this league, much more will be required in the coming weeks.
Despite following hot on the heels of round one and the first genuine results of the season, the second round of the National Football League can often be full of pitfalls for those looking at form to guide their betting strategy. For example, last year in the first round of the league, Armagh travelled to Wexford and scored 4-16 in Wexford Park, while Laois got hammered at home to Kildare, 0-16 to 1-8. But in round 2, Laois travelled up to Armagh and came away with a three point win, scuppering a lot of favourite backers in the process. Also in round one, Limerick travelled to Louth and put in an atrocious performance, losing by almost treble scores, while Roscommon demolished Offaly in Kiltoom, albeit an Offaly team riddled with dissention under Richie Connor. In Round two, Limerick turned over the Sheepstealers, completely making a mockery of this form.
Marketing gurus would probably look at the GAA starting their season up against the Six Nations and think that such madness leaves county boards with no chance of packing out their grounds. Certainly this column has often mentioned how a little bit more promotion and indeed a little better promotion from the mandarins in Croke Park certainly wouldn’t go amiss at times, but then you look at the action we were treated to at the weekend and you realise that in the main, Gaelic Games promote themselves. The light is kept under a basket, but even couch potatoes were well treated at the weekend with a wide range of top quality action on display.
The meeting of Derry and Tyrone was very hard fought, with plenty of excellent scores and fast paced play to savour, Meath and Armagh was a roller coaster ride which could have gone either way at the end, and Dublin went to Killarney and really put it up to the All Ireland champions in another very keenly fought contest. Cork and Monaghan played out an incredible shoutout up in Ulster, while there were plenty of other tense finishes and strong performances to savour all over the country.
Having previewed divisions one and two already, it’s now time to look at the eight games taking place in divisions three and four this weekend and hopefully isolate the teams that may offer a little bit of betting value.
The first game to throw in out of the eight is the meeting of London and Limerick in Ruislip, and one has to feel very sorry for Limerick in this game. They were quite unlucky to drop to division four last year and but for a point here or there, they could easily have retained their place in a quite competitive division three. Their subsequent championship performances proved that they would be quite comfortable in that environment, but instead they must now play in what is likely to be a very scrappy encounter in Ruislip which will be of little benefit to the team other than as a good social occasion.
For every county in Ireland bar Kilkenny, the national football league gets underway this weekend and the viewing public are set to get their first snapshot of how various teams are likely to fare in 2010. While many counties will continue to experiment to a certain degree in the league, the difference in intensity between this weekend and the preseason competitions is sure to be noticeable as teams look to get their season off to a decent start and take the pressure off the latter stages of the competition. For now we’re going to look at the games in division one and two, with the lower divisions to follow later.
In the general betting universe, the recession can sometimes work slightly differently to how it affects the rest of the world. The usual response to a downturn in economic conditions is not that bookmakers do much better, as is often perceived to be the case, but that they strike many more bets at a much lower average stake. Overall turnover usually declines, however this decline is compensated for by the fact that punters are looking for the same big payouts off much smaller stakes and thus they generally place accumulators, or other high margin bets, rather than picking off the value.
From a discerning punter’s point of view, where value is always the key, whether the starting bank is €100 or €100,000, a recession is usually not good news since it can mean an end to the “easy money” for many layers. The response to this from the bookmaking community would often be to cut back on innovation, eliminating those products which are more difficult to price, and to focus instead on more “jackpot” style bets – special multiples paying out big sums, complicated first scorer/winning margin doubles and other bets paying 20/1 or more.
In that light, it was all the more encouraging to see Ladbrokes pricing up their new “Top 4” market for division one of the NFL. It’s reasonable to presume that the level of turnover in the next week or so will determine whether or not we see similar markets created for the other divisions, but even if this is as far as the offering is extended, it’s still good to see and is to be encouraged in the betting community in general.
Regarding their actual pricing, most of the counties appear to be reasonably accurately assessed. Kerry’s price of 1/5 about their finishing in the top four may appear quite short when one considers that the Kingdom are happy to win the National League, but quite unperturbed about their fortunes in the competition nonetheless. Instead the short odds are a reflection of the fact that they still tend to be difficult to beat in the league due to their incredible strength in depth, even if they are playing with August and September in mind.
Likewise at the other end, Monaghan are a fiercely competitive side, but one or two injuries would hit them very hard and they will have their work cut out for themselves dodging relegation. Their odds of 5/2 to finish in the top four may look generous, but there doesn’t appear to be any real value there either, albeit more than there is in the 1/4 about a bottom four finish.
Tyrone’s track record in the national league was strong up until a couple of seasons ago, and even though their championship record remains impressive, they are no longer so metronomic in the league that teams are guaranteed to crumble under them. Results like their narrow win over Westmeath last year, a game that the Red Hands should have lost, simply would not have happened back in the middle of the decade.
Mayo and Derry are ostensibly among the bottom tier of counties in this division but remain difficult to beat, particularly at home, so their odds seem accurate enough too. If forced to bet, this column would lean towards the 6/5 about Derry finishing in the top four and the 8/13 about Mayo finishing in the bottom half, but not so much that a bet would be recommended.
Galway too could go either way under the stewardship of Joe Kernan and could not be backed or opposed with confidence, which leaves only Cork and Dublin as our betting opportunities – and now we hit the real value. In terms of championship football, Cork, with two All Ireland appearances in the past three seasons, are undoubtedly at a higher level than the Dubs, but that doesn’t mean that they are suddenly way superior, merely that bit better able to deliver in All Ireland quarter and semi finals. In league football, the Dubs have been very consistent in recent seasons while Cork have been a little bit more hit and miss.
When a bookmaker disagrees with you, it’s always useful to know why, and in this instance it’s probably fair to say that the home draw for Cork is the big factor. Both sides have three home games in their fixtures against other teams, but when they are scheduled to meet just after the halfway point of the campaign, the tie will be played in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
However in this writer’s case, that is compensated for by the scheduling. Kerry’s struggles in round one of the league are by now legendary and whether or not there is an underlying reason for this, it cannot be ignored – and Dublin have the benefit of playing Kerry in the opening round of games. With Dublin’s infamous training regime likely to have the boys in blue firing on all cylinders relatively early, they could pull off a surprise here.
For Cork, it’s the opposite. They meet Monaghan in round one – a team that most counties will be looking to beat, but one that is likely to get their best results early on; according to our look at Ulster counties and their performances in the opening round fixtures of league campaigns last week.
Cork probably should be favoured to edge out Dublin overall, but only marginally – the odds posted on Ladbrokes.com suggest that a bigger disparity exists between the teams than is genuinely the case. In the interests of spreading the risk, the best policy here is to have a 1.5pt bet on Cork to finish in the bottom four at 5/2, and a further 1.5pt bet on Dublin to finish in the top four at 2/1. These bets should each be odds against, but not to the extent that they are, and as we’ve discussed at length, whether in recession or boom, value remains the key criterion for any punter looking to post a black figure in his profit and loss accounts.
Notwithstanding our speculative punt on Roscommon at 500/1 to win the All Ireland based on the draw, the first recommendation from this column for the 2010 season was Kildare to win division 2 at odds of 10/3, odds which are still available right now. The logic behind that post is explained here – http://betdiary.com/kevinegan/2009/12/15/on-your-marks/ – so there is no need to go through it again, other than to say that the passing of a month hasn’t changed anything contained therein.
However Ladbrokes have since opened betting on which province will provide the winner of each division, and for those interested in the betting on division two, the market is well worth a look.
Right now, miserable as the conditions outside might be, it’s a safe bet that as many as 30% of the country’s intercounty footballers and hurlers will be going out training tonight. 30% more will have gone out training last night and 30% will go out tomorrow night, and as for the other 10%, well they’re just better at coming up with plausible excuses. And despite the miserable conditions, any player will tell you the same thing – it’s all in pursuit of the extra few inches, the extra ounce of strength, the tiniest margins that they hope will be the difference between possession won and possession lost at some crucial time in the summer.
