Six Nations, Super Rugby: what a weekend

Fantastic! So I got all the results right, but got tripped up on the spread of the strongest team in France playing at home versus the weakest. This is sport.

We have an action-packed weekend with Super Rugby starting and (tongue-in-cheek) I’m excited to see how bad our players really are.

There is another round of Six Nations and based on the form of the first two rounds I am going to tip 1/500 England to win big against 33/1 Italy; even money Scotland to beat 8/11 Wales narrowly at home and 1/3 Ireland to continue their strong form against 9/4 France.

I’m pretty confident about England’s ability and Italy need time to develop their young talent. I have been impressed by Scotland’s organisation in defence and their ability to carve out chances. I’m not sure what the weather will do, and Wales are a team who love to play with the ball, but I fancy the Scots who were in the contest all the way against France a fortnight ago.

I think Ireland have a good chance to win all their remaining games. I have been impressed with their vastly improved scrum, and I think this may be a focal point in this game. How will the referee rule on this facet where France will almost certainly be looking for historical superiority? More important though is the pace of the game where both are more than capable of a good carry and unlocking the best defence.

I fancy the double here Scotland and Ireland ... perhaps even the spread available on bettingworld.co.za.

In Super Rugby I wouldn’t be looking past the NZ franchises. The Chiefs and Hurricanes stand out but they all impressed me last year, including the under-performing Blues. I think the Reds will be the big improvers from the Aussie conference, and you would have to give the Lions another crack given how well they did with a really tough schedule last season. Chiefs and the Hurricanes are both given at 10/11.

The Rugby 5 has some interesting permutations and I’ve covered two of the fixtures.

The other one I’m going to touch on is the local derby between the Cheetahs and the Lions who were very disappointing in the Currie Cup.

If the Lions are on song, they’ll win this fixture home or away. Having refereed these early-season games there is often a lot of ring-rustiness and for this reason I’m going to side with the home team on the spread – bettingworld -10.5 – to build on their domestic success of last year. Bet of the round are the Reds to beat the Sharks by the 5 pt spread.