Rugby League - GB vs Australia

[Punto83]

Best odds/All odds
Great Britain	+9.5 1.9	+12 1.9	+10 1.9	+8 1.83	+10 1.9	+10 1.9	+10 1.9	+8 1.9	+10 1.9	+12 1.9	+10.5 1.85
Australia	-9.5 1.83	-12 1.9	-10 1.9	-8 1.83	-10 1.9	-10 1.9	-10 1.9	-8 1.9	-10 1.9	-12 1.9	-10.5 1.94
Handicap Tie	-	17	-	15	17	17	17	17	17	15	-

Interesting match up this and to be honest the bookies look to have the handicap about right.... They tend to be hightly competative and its within every possibility that GB could win htis by a the narrowest of margins, after all, if they lose..... the tri nations for GB is over. But........ can Australia win by more than 10 points? (ladbrookes looks a decent bet at -8) I honestly don't know. NZ surprisngly beat the Aussies at the start of the series and then lost by a short margin so its safe to say GB are in for a tough time. Noble hasn't made many changes for the game, Harris comes in at Stand off (hasn't really set the world on fire since coming back to League) with Sinfield moving to Loose Forward. At least Harris is with his club mate Deacon? In my opinion Australia will win (but there isn't much value in betting the 1x2) but I honestly couldn't say with more than 60% confidence it would be more than 10? Any thoughts Rugby lad, Alan Partridge, Paul?

[kevshat]

Re: Rugby League - GB vs Australia Much as it hurts me to say it I think the Aussies will win this easily. It was always going to be a tough ask for GB to have an impact on this tri-nations given that we are missing probably our 5 biggest stars in Radlinkski, Farrell, Sculthorpe, Long and Maguire. If you add to that the fact that NZ look much stronger this year then we was always going to be up against it. At first I thought the 7/2 on GB at Bet Direct looked worth a small interest but then I've thought about it and I don't think 7/2 is a good bet anymore. I'm can't understand Brian Noble's team selection. Brian Carney hardly played for Wigan in Superleague this season and when he did play he was woefully out of form and with Wigan not qualifying for the playoffs Carney had gone 6 weeks without playing a game of football. The Kiwis were well aware of all of this and targetted him from the off and it has to be said he had an absolute stinker. I was amazed that Carney made the side ahead of Calderwood who couldn't even make the squad despite being consistent throughout the season and the Superleague's top try scorer! His performance wouldn't have gone unnoticed by the Aussies so expect him to be under more pressure this time too. Also Rob Burrow came on for Deacon after about 20 mins of the NZ game yet Burrow gets the chop and Deacon starts against the Aussies. It makes no sense to me. For me Rob Burrow would always be more of a menace to the opposition than Paul Deacon no matter who the opposition is. I'd also like to see Richard Horne in the side, but I guess if it's a case of Horne or one of the two Bradford players then the Bradford players will win every time with Noble in charge. On the plus side for Britain, they have to win else it's curtains to the Tri-Nations for this year and Australia have no Andrew Johns for the rest of the Tri-Nations but the Aussies ran up 40 odd unanswered points against a similar GB team in the final last year and I can seeing them running riot again. The bets for me this week are Australia -8 at 5/6 with Stan James - 20pts win Australia ht/ft at 4/7 with Stan James - 10pts win Once the bookies get their fingers out of their arses and price up the 1st try scorer I'll post a selection in that as well. Of course all off the above will only be strengthened further if Adrian Morley fails to see out 10 seconds of the game again!! :rollin