The Road to Riches Weekend of 16th-17th May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Doncaster, Newbury, Newmarket and Thirsk and over the jumps at Bangor-on-Dee and Uttoxeter.
• Premier League, the FA Cup Final
• Cricket, the IPL continues, and the T20 Blast starts next Friday
• Golf, the Byron Nelson Championship on the USPGA Tour and the Soudal Open on the DP World Tour.
• Tennis, ATP Hamburg and Geneva Opens

Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

Available now, for Neil’s tips for every race of the five-day festival next month here

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IPL: Punjab Kings v RCB 11am Sunday Dharamsala

As we enter the last week of group stage games in the 2026 IPL Sunday begins with a repeat of last year’s final, this time played in the far north and the foothills of the Himalayas at Dharamsala.

As I write these are two sides in the top four, RCB 1st (a Kohli century led them to victory on Wednesday to take them to the top again) and Kings 4^th after five defeats in a row ( they will fall out of the top four if Chennai Super Kings beat Lucknow Super Giants on Friday), both with plenty to play for in large part due to the structure of the play-offs:

1^st in the league table play 2^nd with the winner going straight through to the final.

Then 3^rd plays 4^th, the winner playing the loser of the 1^st/2^nd game.

Therefore we can see the 1^st/2^nd place winner plays a game less in the play-offs.

By Indian standards, Dharamsala can be a spicy pitch with mixed weather and an emphasis on player technique. Punjab Kings were 140-7 against good medium pace bowling that nibbled around against Mumbai on Thursday to give an indication of this.

For the Punjab Kings Arya and Prabhsimran open, with Iyer and Australian Connolly batting alternating between number 3 and 4.

Arja returned to form on Monday with a 24-ball 50 including six sixes after a mixed tournament up until that point. He now has 366 runs in 11 innings at a huge 216 strike rate off just 168 balls including a massive 32 sixes. A boom-bust option for player betting markets.

Fellow opener Prabhsimran (549 IPL runs last year) top scored in Thursday’s match with 57 and now has 439 in 11 innings at a strike rate of 170.

Iyer, with 50 Indian T20I appearances has 396 runs in his 11 innings at a strike rate of 164.

Connolly (22-year-old left hander from Perth, who made his international debut in all three formats by early 2025) meanwhile is the Kings’ top scorer so far this season with 436 runs at a strike rate of 162. His 11 innings this season include these scores: 72*, 87, 107, 30,36, and 38 with three team top scorer scores.

Odds in the Punjab Kings top scorer market are:

Iyer 3/1

Prabhsimran 3/1

Arya 100/30

Connolly 9/2

This is obviously a competitive heat, but Connolly at 4/1+ looks interesting value as team top scorer as fourth favourite at a venue where the new ball may see him in relatively early.

10 points Cooper Connolly top Punjab Kings run scorer at 9/2 SkyBet, Paddy Power, 4/1 BetVictor, 7/2 Bet365, Betfred, Ladbrokes/Coral

Embrace the chaos

The 2026 Six Nations set a tournament high for tries (111 at an average of 7.4 per game). France scored 33 or more points in each of their five fixtures. The previous best was 25, by England’s class of 2003 and by France last year.

There were 12 instances of a team scoring 30 or more points in a match, helped by France’s 50-40 loss to Scotland and their 48-46 victory over England the following weekend. For context, there were only two instances of a team scoring 30 points in the 2011 Six Nations.

France retained the title despite conceding 19 tries more than anyone else except sixth-placed Wales (26). In 2011England conceded just five tries on their way to the Championship.

Various factors combined to see this explosion of tries and scoring. Five of the six teams endured historically poor tournaments from a defensive standpoint. In terms of points conceded, England’s campaign was their worst of all 27 Six Nations competitions. France’s was their 26th, Wales’s their 25th, Ireland’s their 24th and Scotland’s their 22nd.

The 2024-5 law change with a crackdown on escort runners when defending high kicks has yielded more vigorous aerial contests, with chasers granted “access” to the defensive catcher. This has made things more “chaotic” and “transition-based”, therefore tipping the balance in favour of the attack rather than the structure defences prefer. 

There were only 33 penalties kicked at goal in 2026, down from 53 in 2025 and 63 in 2024. Tries from quick taps were up to 14 from only four in last year’s Six Nations and the lineout remains a fruitful platform, with 53 of the 111 tries in 2026 beginning from that set piece. Officials have also become stricter on how mauls are set up, penalising obstruction when they see it, but sides can launch a range of lineout plays including dummy drives.

Also we are in an era of fast-developing individual skills and better and better player conditioning that helps when games open up in the second half. French winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey is a generational player and is a reason for the try spike in itself. He converts chances others cannot. Six of his record nine tries in this year’s Six Nations, including three of the four he scored against England featured a kick on the scoring phase.

Add to him the likes of Finn Russell, Jalibert and others and we have a perfect storm of individual skills, law changes and attacking approaches currently being ahead of defensive patterns that has led to hugely attractive and high-scoring rugby.

In due course of course defense coaches will catch up, and especially in Winter Northern Hemisphere weather there will still be tight and tense matches characterised by tough tackling and turnovers, but it is difficult to see the attacking ethos and chaotic styles of play disappearing from the game completely. That should be here to stay.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 8th-9th May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Ascot, Haydock, Leicester, Lingfield and Nottingham and over the jumps at Hexham and Warwick.
• Premier League, fixtures include Liverpool v Chelsea
• Cricket, the IPL continues
• Golf, the USPGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club
• Tennis, ATP Italian Open continues

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Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

Available now, for Neil’s tips for every race of the five-day festival next month here

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IPL: RCB v Mumbai Indians Sunday 3pm

Sunday’s second IPL match sees the Mumbai Indians (9^th of 10 teams in the current league table with three wins and seven losses so far) visit third-placed RCB, defending IPL Champions (six wins and four losses)

Through 50 IPL matches in 2026 so far there have been 13 scores of 220 or more, six of those above 240. Four of those 13 scores have been compiled against an underperforming Mumbai bowling attack.

For a variety of reasons (true pitches, small boundaries, bat technology, player conditioning for range hitting, hitting technique) T20 scoring has advanced, leading the way for the T20 global game.

As you can see from the table above this has been particularly evident in the Powerplay overs (1-6 at the start of the innings) where run rates have exploded in recent times, surpassing 10 runs per over on average for the first time in this season’s IPL.

Mumbai have allowed 745 runs in 10 bowling powerplays at 12.4 runs per powerplay, the worst in the competition this season.

RCB began the tournament with Phil Salt opening alongside Virat Kohli ahead of Paddikal and Patidar at 3 and 4 with Tim David the finisher. Salt has missed the last four games with a finger injury, and remains out, and Jacob Bethell has come in to open alongside Kohli.

Kohli/Bethell/Paddikal/Patidar is a high variance batting line-up, perfectly capable of hitting 250-3 whilst throwing in the odd 155 all out along the way.

Kohli has (unsurprisingly) been the star performer at the top of the order with 379 runs in 10 innings (231 balls) at an average of 47 at a 165 strike-rate and three 50s.

Paddikal has 316 runs in 9 innings off 175 balls at an average of 40, strike rate of 180.

Patidar 318 runs in 9 innings off just 159 balls at an average of 40 and a huge strike rate of 200.

Bethell has started his belated IPL campaign slowly with scores of 4,5,14 and 20 in his four innings so far.

For Mumbai’s bowling Jasprit Bumrah only has 3 wickets in ten games, Santner is out injured and Trent Boult 2 wickets in 5 games.

With those three marquee players struggling spinner Ghazanfar has led the way with 12 wickets at 23 in 8 matches, frequently bowling in the powerplay. Medium pacers Ashwani Kumar and Thakur have 12 wickets in 8 combined games whilst latterly South African fast-medium bowler Corbin Bosch has played 2 matches.

With the strength of this four matching-up against Mumbai’s powerplay bowling I looked for an opportunity in the RCB Top batsman market.

Kohli 2/1

Patidar 3/1

Paddikal 4/1

Bethell 11/2

Iyer 11/2

David 7/1

As to be expected Kohli is favourite and little value. Batting 3 and 4, Paddikal and Patidar are both alternatives, especially with Bethell opening in poor form and one/both likely to be batting during the powerplay.

With similar records, the better value appears to be Paddikal at 4/1 batting above Patidar.

10 points Devdutt Paddikal Top RCB run scorer at 9/2 Bet365, PaddyPower, 4/1 Ladbrokes/Coral, StarSports, 19/5 William Hill.

Thousands for Hundreds

The Hundred's inaugural player auction has taken place and the squads for the eight teams are now finalised.

For the first five editions of the competition, players were allocated to teams via a draft system with a set of salary tiers. Following substantial private investment in The Hundred, players not already signed or retained now have their team and pay set by an auction.

Squads will be made up of between 16 to 18 players, while there is a salary cap limit along with a salary collar, a minimum amount teams must spend.

The salary pot in the men's competition for 2026 has risen by 45% to £2.05m per side, and the fund for women's teams has increased by 100% to £880,000.

The auction created some of the highest paid sportswomen in the UK, with all-rounder Danielle Gibson, pace bowler Issy Wong and 18-year-old spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman received deals in excess of £100,000.

In the men's auction, 21-year-old James Coles earned £390,000, while batter Jordan Cox claimed £300,000. There were also big deals for Joe Root and Adil Rashid.

The Hundred begins on July 21^st running until August 16^th. The teams will play a total of 64 matches in the group stage (32 men's, 32 women's). All matches will be held on the same day at the same grounds.

Each team will play four matches at home and four away, including one match against every other side in the competition and a bonus match against their nearest regional rivals. After the league stage, the top three teams will progress to the knockout stage to decide the champions. The second- and third-place teams will face each other in the eliminator at The Oval in London. The winner of the eliminator then met the league-topping team in the final at Lord's.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 2nd-3rd May

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Goodwood, Newmarket, Thirsk and Ripon, over the jumps at Hexham and Uttoxeter
• FA Cup, Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Liverpool
• Rugby Union, the European Champions Cup Semi-Finals
• Cricket, the IPL Continues
• Formula One, the Miami Grand Prix
• Golf, the Myrtle Beach Classic on the USPGA Tour and the Catalunya Open on the DP World Tour
• Tennis, ATP Italian Open
   

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​Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

Now available for all five days of Royal Ascot in June for £199 see Here

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European Rugby Champions Cup Rugby Semi-Final

Leinster v Toulon Saturday 3pm Dublin

Leinster have a familiar advantage in the late stages of the ERCC, as the higher seed in this game (3 v 7) the country of the higher seed hosts the semi-final. In Ireland this necessarily means in Dublin and a home tie for Leinster given there no other suitable venues elsewhere in Ireland.

As Leinster generally win their pool with a high seed following for the knock-out stages this will be a fifth successive home semi-final, however they lost to Northampton at this venue in last year’s semi-final.

Leinster the largest and most successful of the four Irish provinces has for a generation been bolstered by the pipeline from the IRFU Academy system and the vibrant Dublin club game. They’ve won the United Rugby Championship for 7 out of the last 8 years and contain the vast majority of the Ireland national team squad. In the Quarter-Final win against Sale their side contained 13 Irish Internationals supplemented by New Zealand winger Rieko Ioane.

Domestically under the coaching team of Leo Cullen and South Africa’s Jacques Nienaber this has been a more mixed year, currently fourth in the URC with 10 wins and 6 losses, though they’ve won 5 of 6 games against other Irish teams though because of the factors mentioned above their European pedigree is vast, twice semi-finalists and three times runners-up in this tournament over the last five years.

Toulon have struggled in the domestic top 14 this season, currently 8^th with 11 wins and 10 losses in an inconsistent season but have proven to be a big game team with big game players in European competition.

Toulon beat the URC’s top two teams in successive weeks in the early ERCC knockout stages as after clinching a narrow 28-27 win over the Stormers in their round-of-16 clash, they also edged out Glasgow Warriors 22-19 in the Quarter-Finals, a result based on collective defensive resolve and the individual brilliance of their backline.

As well as French Internationals Ollivon, Serin, Jaminet and Drean their overseas recruitment with a big budget allowing big salaries includes star Italian centre Brex, Scotland’s scrum-half White and the excellent England second row and now Toulon captain David Ribbans.

Understandably enough at home with their European record Leinster are favourites to make another final, 2/9 outright and -9.5 points on the handicap.  Toulon are 100/30. I would expect Leinster to win, meaning we’ll fall just short of the Toulon ante-post ERCC bet this column recommended in December at 20/1 each way but I like them to cover in a close game given their big game temperament and defensive skills.

11 points Toulon +9.5 points at 10/11 generally

Pivot

The few days before the start of each new NFL league year in mid-March is a 32-team free-for-all of free agency tampering where player deals are done ahead of official confirmation when the new year starts.

Every NFL signing and trade is subject to a physical. Nothing's official until players pass those physicals. Obviously, each team's comfort with the wear and tear it sees on football players depends on a variety of factors. That came to the fore this year with the Baltimore Ravens decision to trade two first round draft picks for the Raiders Maxx Crosby, who missed part of last season with an injury, a very important, franchise-altering decision  essentially committing to paying their new star edge rusher nearly $94m over the next three seasons. Crosby was still recovering from the meniscus surgery he underwent at the end of the 2025 season given the typical timeframe.

After he failed a Ravens physical, Baltimore backed out of the deal. The Ravens knew Crosby was recovering from meniscus surgery. The Raiders are said believe that the Ravens had buyers remorse and made a meal out of whatever they found and using it as a pretense to change their mind.

Undoing the trade complicates the short term and the long term for the Ravens organisationally. Baltimore players were excited about playing with Crosby. Fans were thrilled to add a superstar. They're all disappointed now. Even if they don't believe that the Ravens just changed their mind, teams are going to be more hesitant to talk trades with Baltimore given the perception that it might be more finicky about physicals and prone to reversing deals than other organisations.

Ultimately, nobody outside of Baltimore's building can ever really know for sure whether the Ravens were strictly reacting to Crosby's physical, simply changed their mind or some combination of the two. The next day they pivoted to signing free agency pass rusher Trey Hendrickson to a bigger deal than Crosby’s.

Having signed Hendrickson there are plenty of sceptics who believe that the Ravens finessed the Raiders including the vast majority of people in the Raiders facility.

With Crosby's rights reverting back to the Raiders and the Ravens recouping their two first-round picks, both teams can act as if this trade never happened. Having already traded Crosby once, though, the Raiders should still be incentivised to get a deal done as quickly as possible.  The Raiders needed the picks more than they needed Crosby, given how far they are from contending. Crosby was going to finally get to play for a winner and a perennial contender. This could have been a win-win trade. It could still be one with a different team.

Let's consider a few scenarios for how that could play out.

1. Another team trades two first-round picks to the Raiders for Crosby.  Obviously, the best-case scenario for the Raiders right now would be getting a similar haul from another team, one that doesn't share the same concerns with the Ravens about Crosby's medical results. Doing so would both get the Raiders the draft capital they want and implicitly suggest that Las Vegas was right to suggest that the Ravens backed out of the trade for reasons unrelated to the physical.

2. Another team trades two first-round picks to the Raiders for Crosby sometime in the months to come. This is unlikely, but it's possible that Crosby's meniscus looks better closer to the draft or even afterwards leading a team to feel more comfortable trading two first-round picks. If another team waits until after the draft, it could acquire Crosby in 2026 and hold on to its first-round pick this year while sending its 2027 and 2028 first-rounders to the Raiders, which would be a less valuable and more uncertain offer for Vegas.

3. Another team trades something that isn't a 2027 first-round pick to the Raiders to acquire Crosby. This is the most likely scenario It's going to be very difficult for Las Vegas to land a similarly sized offer to the one it had from Baltimore.

4. Another team acquires Crosby without needing to send a first-round pick. If Crosby's medical reports are really as concerning as the Ravens' pivot suggests, there might not be a first-round pick in play.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 25th-26th April

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Leicester, Haydock, Ripon, over the jumps at Sandown and on the all-weather at Southwell
• FA Cup, Premier League fixtures include Arsenal v Newcastle United
• Cricket, the IPL Continues
• Golf, the Cadillac Championship on the USPGA Tour and the Turkish Open on the DP World Tour
• Tennis, ATP Madrid Open

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​Royal Ascot (Full Package) 16th - 20th June 2026

Now available for all five days of Royal Ascot in June for £199 see Here

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Gallagher PREM Rugby Northampton v Bath Saturday 5.30pm

As a companion paragraph to the section below consider the PREM’s experience last weekend. A league with the vision 'to be the best and most competitive league in the world' has been made very cosy without relegation-promotion. Four no-contests amounted to Saracens, Leicester, Bristol and Bath beating Sale, Newcastle, Gloucester and Harlequins by a combined margin of 199 points.

Fortunately, this weekend sees a potential cracker between the 2024 Grand Final winners (Northampton) hosting the 2025 winners (Bath). Northampton were European Champions Cup finalists last year and Bath Champions Cup semi-finalists this year the pair are first and second in the league table with five rounds to go ahead of the play-offs. 

Northampton and Bath have each won 11 of 13 league games so far and scored 474 and 484 points respectively. Three weeks ago in the European Quarter-Final in Bath Northampton were 21 points up but lost 43-41at the death.

Another close high scoring game is likely here.

Last weekend Northampton won at Exeter 35-28 with a last minute try, last Quarter substitutions introducing the likes of Freeman and Pollock to the game made the difference. Bath meanwhile won 48-15 at home to Harlequins. Earlie in the season, Northampton won 41-21 in Bath in December.

This match takes place a week before Bath’s European semi-final in Bordeaux and it could be that Bath rotate from their first-choice team with this in mind. Bath are five points clear of Leicester in the league table, second to third, and they play in the last round of fixtures in Bath in early June so perhaps they will prioritise Bordeaux with a view to still finishing in the top two by the end of the regular season.

This is all reflected in a handicap quote of Northampton -10.5 here, which would be in the region of Northampton -3 if the expectation was two full strength teams. However, Bath has the deepest squad in the league and 10+ points looks a big start.

Bath +10.5 points at 10/11 generally

Moving the goalposts

The RFU Council voted overwhelmingly to abolish automatic promotion and relegation between the Prem and Champ Rugby, replacing it with a criteria-based expansion model that will keep the top-flight at 10 teams until at least 2029/30, when it is targeted to grow to 12.

This is the most significant structural change to English club rugby since the game turned professional in 1995, and the reverberations will be felt for decades. Ealing Trailfinders who have won Champ Rugby three times in four seasons and who play their home matches at a 5,000-capacity ground is a club good enough to win the second tier repeatedly but denied entry to the top-flight because their ground capacity fell short of the 10,001 minimum required to bring them under Sports Grounds Safety Authority jurisdiction.

Now the goalposts have been replaced entirely, swapped for financial sustainability assessments, commercial strength metrics, governance frameworks and geographic strategic value criteria that Ealing were never given the opportunity to meet.

Wasps, Worcester Warriors, London Irish collectively vanished from the top flight in a single season, leaving the Prem as a 10-team competition. The collapse of those three clubs transformed a debate about franchise models into an urgent crisis, and it was the moment when CVC Capital Partners  who purchased 27% of Premiership Rugby for approximately £200m in 2019 began making clear that investor confidence in a system where unpredictable relegation threatened to destroy the value of any acquired stake needed fundamental rethinking.

Red Bull’s arrival at Newcastle Falcons was a signal that the capital circling English club rugby comes from an ecosystem that understands NFL franchises, NBA ownership and Formula 1 constructors and which regards promotion and relegation as an existential threat to the value of any stake its participants might acquire.

The argument goes that without structural certainty for investors, the capital required to compete with Top 14 and the United Rugby Championship at the highest European level will go elsewhere, leaving English rugby to spiral further into the financial turbulence that took Wasps, Worcester and London Irish and which very nearly consumed Newcastle Falcons.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 18-19th April

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Leicester, Haydock, Ripon, over the jumps at Sandown and on the all-weather at Southwell
• FA Cup, Premier League fixtures include Manchester City v Arsenal
• Cricket, the IPL Continues
• Golf, the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the USPGA Tour and the China Open on the DP World Tour
• Tennis, ATP Madrid Open

 

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Free Tip

Gallagher Prem Rugby: Exeter v Northampton Saturday 3.05pm

The Prem returns after two European knockout weekends, including this game between to two top four sides headed for the play-offs ahead of the Grand Final in June.

Last weekend Exeter reached the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup with a 44-41 win at Benetton in Italy whilst Northampton fell at Bath to exit the Champions Cup 43-41 in an 11-try game which they led by 21 points in the first half. It was only the ninth  Champions Cup game with both teams scoring 40 points or more and 6 of 9 have been since 2023/24 including the last 2 Northampton games.

Northampton and Exeter finished 8^th and 9^th last season in the Prem but both have turned round hugely this season. Northampton are currently top  with ten wins and a draw from 12 games, Exeter are 4^th with 8 wins and a draw, and are 7 points clear of Bristol in fifth.

Northampton are a prolific attacking side having scored 439 points in 12 league games but have conceded 336. Exeter in the other hand have only scored 326 points but conceded just 207 points.

When these teams met right at the start of the season in Northampton they drew 33-33!

Exeter’s “glory years” a few years ago were about doing the attacking basics right, notably very difficult to stop from 5 yards out  and that has returned this season where they have been efficient and ruthless with their scoring chances. Last week for example they had just three entries into the 22 and scored three tries requiring just 15 carries to score them. It’s been a huge feature of their success this season where Australian back-row recruit Tom Hooper has complimented the emerging England international candidate number 8 Greg Fisilau. Winger Manny Feyi-Waboso is also back from injury giving the team more of a cutting edge for the run in.

Northampton’s first choice team can include Furbank, Freeman, Dingwall, Fin Smith, Pollock, Mitchell and Coles, a core of young English Internationals that have played together a lot in an attacking system that opponents struggle to stop.

After a long Six Nations and successive European weeks some team selection rotation is inevitable.

Prices for the game are Northampton Evens, Eexter 4/5 and Northampton +1.5 on the handicap. 

11 points Northampton +1.5 points at 10/11 generally

Offense down

In the 2025 NFL season passing yards per game are down. Completion percentage was down. Quarterback rating was down. Net passing yards per attempt were the second-lowest they’ve been by league average since 2007. Sacks, while hovering in the low 40s per team per season, have remained there the past three seasons after spending the better part of the previous decade in the mid-30s. 

One of the key reasons for this fall off in offensive production is an ideological advance for defenses, which has limited league offenses over the past two seasons.

Five of the final eight coaches in this year’s playoffs specialised in the defensive side of the ball. A majority of the top head coaching candidates this year were also from the defensive side of the ball. Arguably the best head coaching hire of the past two seasons, Mike McDonald for the Seahawks, transformed his team through the installation of a versatile, “big-nickel” scheme, and the “hybrid” safeties that are coming into the league allows  defenses to both defend the run and play “two high” in the secondary to prevent big plays. 

Quarterbacks are feeling more pressure, see less clearly and possess less of an ability to simply maul opponents in the run game than ever before. No one has been immune and the Super Bowl itself, with defenses dominating and no touchdowns until the third quarter, was a microcosm of this.