Rugby League: Four Nations 2011

[kevshat]

The international tournament of the year begins on Friday night when the top 2 meet in Warrington. England and Wales join Australia and NZ for the event which is an event which usually throws up plenty of decent betting opportunities. I'm sure that will be no different this year. Fire away gents :ok.

[The Pope]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Australia -12 at Evens with Sportingbet is a cracking shout in my opinion. The Aussies look as strong as ever and put 40 past the Kiwis a few weeks ago. NZ are missing some key players and certainly don't look the team of a few years pack.

[thegreathiggins]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Two Bets for this game - NZ +14 at evens Aussie to win by 6-10 at 11/2 Both by B365 My Reasoning for this is that the Aussies beating NZ 42-6 two weeks ago will have zero bearing on this match as NZ notoriously have a very bad record in stand alone tests and the winning margin was largely due to it being on a dry track on a warm day in Newcastle (NSW) which is far more allowing for free flowing rugby rather a cold day in Warrington. I expect the Kiwis to turn this match into more of an arm wrestle using there big forward pack to slow it down and their Captain Benji Marshall who is arguably the best player in the world at the moment to step up after the humiliation of a few weeks ago.

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 :welcome to PL thegreathiggins :ok. I agree with you. Really looking forward to this one tonight. 4pts New Zealand (+16) to beat Australia 10/11 Stan James I think this handicap comes as a reaction to the warm up game these two played a couple of weeks ago which Australia won 42-6. I don't think this will be as one sided. New Zealand have a couple of key players back and this is effectively a chance to put themselves into the final of this competition before its even begun. Australia are unchanged from that match in Newcastle while New Zealand recall Isaac Luke to the starting line up with Thomas Leuluai a very good replacement off the bench. In Benji Marshall the Kiwis have for me the best player in world rugby right now and if he plays well the rest of the side will play well off him. He isn't the only one in this side who are class though, there's Kieran Foran and Kevin Locke as well as the brilliantly named influential Fuifui Moimoi off the bench. Greg Inglis is being saved for next week which is a help for the Kiwis here and while I think Australia will probably win the game I certainly don't see them winning it by 3 converted tries so I will take New Zealand with the 16pt head start.

[Mirage]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Good call there Kev, hopefully the start of a profitable campaign :ok

[PerryPFC]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Perfect result for Kev and the pope! Not sure if Higgins is a Push or was it a 3-way handicap?

[thegreathiggins]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 It was 3-way unluckily which will teach me to shop around more ! Would have been perfect it hadn't been for the flying Fijian, Good work guys!

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Cheers guys. Unlucky there TGH. Couple of shall we say inconsistent calls to say the least went in the Aussies favour in that match. If and when the two do battle in the final I would expect a real tight game.

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 One for this afternoon. 5pts England (-34) to beat Wales 8/11 Boylesports I'm a lot more optimistic about this England team this year and while I don't agree with the selection of Rangi Chase there's no doubt that he adds an extra dimension to this England attack. Why we keep persisting with Kevin Sinfield at stand off I'm not so sure especially when there's the likes of Maguire and Burrow who are regulars in the halves not to mention the likes of Luke Robinson among a couple of others. However in the forwards for the first time in a while in one of these tournaments we have them all fit and they should be able to provide the platform for our backs and quality players in the likes of Sam Tomkins, Tom Briscoe, Ryan Hall and Rangi Chase to perform to maximum effect. This Wales side even by their coach Iestyn Harris' admission is in this tournament a couple of years too soon and I think that will be shown throughout the competition. Lee Briers aside they lack the spark to unlock defences regularly and there's no real out and out strength in any part of their side. A few members of the squad were performing in the leagues below Super League last season and that highlights the task in hand here. I expect England to be too strong in this match and would expect England to run in close to 50pts in this match which will be enough to cover this handicap.

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 England covered the handicap to leave me +7.29 for the tournament so far but dear me we are going to have to improve 100 times on that performance just to avoid a rout by the Aussies. Will be very interested to see the handicaps for the Wembley double header next Saturday.

[Danby]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011

England covered the handicap to leave me +7.29 for the tournament so far but dear me we are going to have to improve 100 times on that performance just to avoid a rout by the Aussies. Will be very interested to see the handicaps for the Wembley double header next Saturday.

Aus -14,-16 ..

[Lahrio]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 England vs Australia In the past few years, Australia have tended to have excellent first halves, before slowing down in the second half. Here are some statistic of their last Australia vs NZ - 16-0 HT, 26-12 FT. Won by 16 in 1H, Lost by 2 in 2H. Australia vs NZ - 26-0 HT, 42-6 FT. Won by 26 in 1H, 10 in 2H. Australia vs NZ - 10-6 HT, 20-10 FT. Won by 4 in 1H, 6 in 2H. Australia vs NZ - 6-6 HT, 12-16 FT. Draw in 1H, Lost by 4 in 2H. Australia vs NZ - 18-10 HT, 34-20 FT. Won by 8 in 1H, 6 in 2H. Australia vs England - 26-8 HT, 34-14 FT. Won by 18 in 1H, 2 in 2H. Australia vs PNG - 26-0 HT, 42-0 FT. Won by 26 in 1H, 16 in 2H. In their last 7 matches, they have only performed better in the Second Half once. So, while I think England may be able to cover the handicap over 80 minutes, I think they will go into HT with some work to do. I will be taking a look at the following bets: 10 Units - Australia -10pts @ 2.38 HT Handicap with PaddyPower Another interesting statistic is the scoring record of Billy Slater against England. Since his debut for Australia in 2008, he has never failed to cross the tryline against England. In fact, he has scored a total of 9 tries in his 4 games against England, including 2 hat-tricks. 0.1 Units/Pt - Buy Slater Try Minutes @ 29 with SportingIndex 5 Units - Billy Slater to score @ 1.83 (Sky Bet) 1 Unit - Billy Slater to score 2+ @ 3.75 (Sky Bet) 0.5 Units - Billy Slater to score 3+ @ 13.00 (Sky Bet) Wales vs New Zealand New Zealand have a habit of annihilating minnows, and I can't see it being too different tonight. They have played 3 competitive matches against minnow nations in the past few years, against France and PNG. Both these sides are currently ranked higher in the RLIF rankings than Wales. NZ v PNG - 76-12 NZ v France - 62-12 NZ v PNG - 48-6 While I don't think the Kiwi team is as strong as it has been over the past few years, I really can't see Wales doing much to stop even a second rate NZ side who don't let up regardless of how far they are in front. I also feel that Benji Marshall has the style of play that enables these huge scores against weaker sides, whereas against sides like Australia or England, they are better able to defend it. Minnows also generally tend to tire rather quickly when the second half comes around, particularly when playing against one of the top 3 nations. We can look at England last week, where 5 of their 8 tries were scored after HT. We can also look at those 3 NZ results I mentioned earlier to see at least half of the tries in all of those games were score after HT (with an average of over 6 tries a game after HT)! 10 Units - New Zealand -44pts @ 1.91 (PaddyPower) 3 Units - New Zealand -54pts @ 3.25 (Ladbrokes) 5 Units - New Zealand -24.5pts 2nd Half Handicap @ 2.00 (Bet365)

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 One for me this afternoon. Initially I liked Australia to cover 14 and I still think they probably will but there is some heavy rain forecast for Wembley during that match which could make it more of a lottery especially with the first game cutting up a pitch which was churned up by the NFL a couple of weeks ago which won't make free flowing rugby easy so I'll stick to a bet on the early match. 6pts New Zealand (-44) to beat Wales Evs Bet365 I can't see beyond a New Zealand big win this afternoon. Even allowing for the fact that they might keep something in the tank for what will effectively be a semi final with England next week in all likelihood I still think they'll run up a decent number against the Welsh this afternoon. Although they only scored 12pts against the Aussies last week they had the chances for double that and the rustiness that was in them will be out of their system for this week. What I like about this Kiwi side is they have a back seven who are all capable of scoring plenty of tries but they can also go over in the forwards too. Nathan Fien is a good addition to their side for this match and then there's Benji Marshall who has torn apart better defences than this Welsh one. Wales will be game once again and for 20-30 minutes they'll be inspired by the surroundings and the chance of playing a top side but when they go 15-20pts behind they may struggle for motivation and as Lahrio said in the second half I think New Zealand could run riot. I didn't see anything last week that says Wales will put up too many points and on a wide open and big playing surface at Wembley I see New Zealand scoring almost at will for a lot of the match so I will take them to cover 44pts in this one.

[Lahrio]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Well, looks very much like a Australia vs England final. The attempts of NZ to play a forwards based game in the second half has done nothing but shown the other teams how much they struggled. Looking forward to next weeks game against England.

[Lahrio]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Not the best day for me at all, especially with Slater going off injured after only 8 minutes. England played much better than I expected. It was actually one of the best performances i've seen from England in recent times. Even the game in Wigan in the 2009 4-nations where the final score was 26-16, you got the sense that Australia eased up in the 2nd half after going in 26-0 ahead. This game I honestly felt as though Australia were pushed the entire game. Really hope England win next weekend as it would be a great atmosphere in the final at Elland Road!

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League: Four Nations 2011 Can't ignore England at this price tonight. 4pts England to beat New Zealand 11/8 Ladbrokes Before a ball was kicked in this tournament I had this down as an Australia vs New Zealand final but having seen the opening two weeks I'm now not so sure. I've been impressed with England and but for a couple of ridiculous calls from an inexperienced referee last week we would've been even closer to Australia than we ended up. There are injury concerns in our forwards but that's an area we are blessed in and the replacements would be strong if needed. It's in the backs I've been impressed with England. I wish we would find a way to get Sam Tomkins into the more attacking positions more regularly but other than that we're going well. New Zealand have looked a bit laboured to me in this tournament and while I expect them to peak tonight I think all the pre-tournament predictions that this NZ side isn't as strong as last year's one rings true. The crowd at Hull will be right behind England tonight. It's a Rugby League hotbed and I think that can inspire the hosts to the win which will set up a potentially fantastic final against the Australians at Elland Road next weekend.