The Road to Riches Weekend of 10th-11th September

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing On the flat at Bath, Chelmsford City, Chester, Doncaster, Lingfield and Musselburgh.
• Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester City v Tottenham
• Rugby Union, the start of the new English Premiership season
• NFL the new season continues
• Cricket, The third test match between England and South Africa at the Oval continues
• Formula One, the Italian Grand Prix
• Golf The Fortinet championship on the USPGA and the Italian Open on the DP World Tour
• Tennis The Davis Cup Finals

Free tip

English Premiership Rugby: Exeter Chiefs v Leicester Tigers 3pm Saturday

Last season Leicester Tigers completed their recovery from the foot of the table three years ago to become Premiership Champions under coach Steve Borthwick winning 20 of their 24 regular season games last year. They begin this season at previous champions Exeter who finished seventh last year with 11 losses.

Inevitably within the confines of a salary cap both sides see squad changes this year. For Leicester Ford and Genge have departed and arrivals include South African fly half Handre Pollard and England winger Anthony Watson. What Leicester also have is the fruits of their Academy programme that has begun to send a pipeline of young talent into the first team. Freddie Steward is the highest profile example of this but there are many others which gives them a squad depth that is going to be needed.  For Exeter internationals Sam Skinner and Jonny Hill are gone with the highest profile arrival the Australian front row Scott Sio.

In terms of playing style Leicester are very strong up-front and have relied on a good kicking game to get them in positions to play rugby. Exeter achieved their success off a style that favoured close-quarters attack in the forwards from which they were very difficult to stop. Perhaps a little one-dimensional though and teams began to work hard to stop them in that area.

This should be a tight game, but one where I like the visitors to eke out a win priced as slight underdogs.

12 points Leicester Tigers to win at 5/4 with William Hill, 11/10 Betfred

Exodus

English Premiership rugby clubs will discuss introducing an emergency salary-cap dispensation to sign Worcester Warriors players that are forced to leave the financially stricken side in the coming weeks. The proposal would require unanimous support to be passed. It has been reported that Worcester players will be allowed to leave if the club goes into administration having failed to pay wages at the end of August. Should departures follow players such as Duhan van der Merwe, Rory Sutherland, Ted Hill and Ollie Lawrence would be among the most attractive assets.

Under current regulations though it would seem difficult to pick up a job in a Premiership that has been operating under a reduced salary cap with 10 or 11 clubs spending within 5% of the ceiling cap. Others have taken the active decision to stay under it. Any sums paid to former Worcester players could be rendered exempt.

The vast majority of clubs have finalised their playing budgets for this season, with some already completing deals for 2023-24. Decreasing the league’s salary cap to £5m, plus a maximum of £1.4m in credits, was a measure made in 2020 with sustainability in mind.

There is a feeling that future planning in accordance with the cap should be rewarded and that allowing big spenders to bolster their squads at short notice would compromise the integrity of the Premiership. Another consideration is the added sense that endorsing spending sprees could be construed as irresponsible because the number one objective of the salary cap is to maintain financial viability. 

Besides anything else, the likelihood is that the Premiership would move to become a 12-team league in the event that Worcester are unable to compete in the new season. Each club would therefore lose a home game and the associated revenue of up to £600,000, depending on attendances. Each Premiership team does have £400,000 to spend beyond the cap for injury cover.

Moves abroad to France, Japan and Major League Rugby in America most likely for Worcester’s top earners, but even those cannot be relied upon given the timing of this situation.

Worcester coach Steve Diamond said last week 'Worcester are just first in the line in being exposed by the frailties of professional sport' and reports over the weekend that the Premiership rugby clubs have reportedly over £500m in combined debts would back that up. Over 20 years of Rugby professionalism in this country and sustainability is a long way off.

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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1^st April 2022. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning  + £59,082.60 All bets have an ROI +2.90%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £63,082.60 a 1477% increase 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 3rd-4th September

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing On the flat at Ascot, Haydock, Kempton, Thirsk, over the jumps at Stratford and on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.
• Football, Premier League fixtures include Everton v Liverpool and Manchester United v Arsenal
• Rugby Union, the Rugby Championship continues Australia v South Africa and New Zealand v Argentina
• NFL the new season starts next week
• Cricket, The third test match between England and South Africa at the Oval starting on Thursday
• Formula One, the Dutch Grand Prix
• Golf The BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth
• Tennis The US Open continues

Free tip

NFL Ante-Post

An ante-post Post write up has been published this week for subscribers to the new season NFL package. All seventeen weeks of the regular season for just £50 available here One of the selections is shown below

Read 'What to expect for the season' here

Offensive Rookie of the Year

This market is wide open, it’s 9/1 the field and 16 players are priced lower than 25/1. It wasn’t a vintage draft year at Quarterback, no “sure things” and the favourite here Kenny Pickett of the Steelers won’t be the starter to begin the season which points out one of the major factors in this market, who is going to get the playing volume and then a second one, the playing volume on a successful enough team getting primetime exposure and preferably into the post-season.

The draft had a lot of depth at wide receiver, five were drafted in the first round, twelve in the first two rounds. Of those my favoured candidate (shortlist also Drake London, George Pickens) is Chris Olave of the New Orleans Saints who traded up to draft him at pick 11 in the spring. Olave heads to the NFL as Ohio State’s all-time leader in receiving touchdowns.  Olave had two double-digit touchdown seasons during his time with Ohio State, including 13 in his senior season in 2021. Olave is an immediate starter, playing opposite Michael Thomas with Jameis Winston throwing the ball. Should be a high volume component of an offense for a team I have recommended to win their division. Available at 10/1 and 12/1.

One comment about the outstanding running back candidate, Breece Hall of the Jets. I think he’s in a timeshare in his rookie season with Michael Carter. I can pass on him below 10/1.

10 points Chris Olave Offensive rookie of the year at 12/1 Betfred 10/1 generally

NFL All seventeen weeks of the regular season for just £50 available here

Streamlining

Andrew Strauss's High-Performance review has called for a cut in the size of Division One of Cricket’s County Championship but there will be no reduction in the number of matches in next year's competition. The review, which will now enter a consultation phase with the first-class counties, was commissioned in the wake of England's defeat in the 2021-22 Ashes.

The most contentious proposed change to the domestic structure is fewer teams in Division One with a reduction from the current 10. One potential format is of a new streamlined top division, of six counties. Below that, there are a range of options including two conferences of six with play-offs to determine promotion into Division One.

The recommendations, which would represent one of the most radical overhauls of the game in many years also include fewer days of domestic cricket, The 50-over competition being moved to April, with a smaller group stage and emphasis on knockout matches, a bonus points scoring system to incentivise better pitches and better rewards for counties who develop international players.

The idea, as with a number of the review’s suggestions, is to encourage the production of flatter pitches, and bring fast bowlers and spinners into the game over medium-pacers, who have thrived in recent years. It is also possible that a brand of ball other than Dukes, (likely Kookaburra) is used for some of the season. Under the proposed system, a win would be worth three points and a draw just one.

Any changes to the schedule require the support of 12 of the 18 counties to be enacted. It had been suggested that the number of County Championship games would be reduced from next year, but the review has stopped short of that and the 2023 season will still see each county playing 14 championship games.

The review also suggests that some form of red-ball cricket should be played during the Hundred, unlike this year where counties have gone through the peak holiday months with no long form cricket . This is likely to be a new ‘best v best’ regional series involving, for example, four regional teams made up of players not contracted to any of the eight Hundred sides. Such a new competition would provide England Test cricketers with preparation in the build-up to a Test series later in the summer, preventing a repeat of this year’s scheduling problem where none of the recent Test side had bowled for several weeks in first-class cricket..

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Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1^st July 2022. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning  + £58,947.90 All bets have an ROI +2.85%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £62,947.90 a 1474% increase 

The Road to Riches: Weekend of 27th-28th August

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing On the flat at Beverley, Goodwood, Newmarket, Redcar and Windsor and over the jumps at Cartmel.
• Football, Premier League fixtures include an early relegation clash, Southampton v Manchester United
• Rugby Union, the Rugby Championship continues Australia v South Africa and New Zealand v Argentina
• Cricket, The second test match between England and South Africa continues at Old Trafford
• Formula One, the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa
• Golf The Made in Himmerland Tournament on the DP World Tour
• Tennis The US Open begins on Monday

Coming soon: NFL Season Package

All seventeen weeks of the regular season for just £50 available here 

Read 'What to expect for the season' here

Free tip

2022 Rugby Championship Round 3: Australia v South Africa, Adelaide, Saturday 6.30am BST

Both sides enter the second round of head to head matches with a win an a loss so far in the Rugby Championship. Australia haven't played at Adelaide for 18 years but do have a terrific recent home record against South Africa with six wins and a draw in their last seven games.

Australia, minus their beat player and captain Michael Hooper, travelled to Argentina and won the first game 41-26 then a week later conceded 8 tries in a 48-17 defeat. Following on from the 2-1 series defeat at home to England earlier this summer its clear that Australia under their new coach remain a work in progress. They have made five changes from the record defeat a fortnight ago.

South Africa beat New Zealand 26-10 but were then beaten 35-23 a week later, the New Zealanders scoring two converted tries in the last ten minutes to come from behind to win. This was a surprise, not just because of the All Blacks poor recent form but because of South Africa’s usual parsimonious defence conceding 35 points.

Prices for the match see Australia 6/4 home underdogs and +4 on the handicap. South Africa’s selection and team rotation has one eye on the 2023 Rugby World Cup but nevertheless I expect them to cover here

15 points South Africa -4 points at 10/11 generally

Taking on water

How many defectors to LIV Golf is enough to tip the balance? At what point do LIV win? Arguably, one answer to that is they won't without Tiger Woods or Rory McIlroy, or at least a combination of Justin Thomas, Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm, Jordan Spieth or a select few others who might qualify as golf's bigger names. Greg Norman's task will be harder if LIV don't succeed in the political struggle to be eligible for the majors from 2023 onwards - without that platform their players have competitive irrelevance.

But perhaps a better question here is have the PGA Tour already lost? Time will tell what happens around the huge unknowns of the majors and the Ryder Cup, and indeed the longer term position of the DP World Tour but there is no doubt the PGA Tour is taking on critical volumes of water.

Adding to Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel, Sergio Garcia and the rest, LIV now have Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed and Abraham Ancer. In other words, LIV Golf players have accounted for nine of the past 21 majors and about to be ten with the imminent recruitment of Cameron Smith.

Whether many or any golf fans will want to watch their LIV exhibition series is open to debate. What can be said with far greater certainty is that the PGA Tour, for all its legitimacy of competition and history, can ill afford to lose many more star attractions.

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Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here. 

Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1^st April 2022. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning  + £59,082.60 All bets have an ROI +2.90%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £63,082.60 a 1477% increase 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 6th-7th August

Please note I am away for the next fortnight, the column will resume for Friday 26^th August

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing On the flat at Ascot, Ayr, Haydock, Lingfield, Newmarket and Redcar.
• Football, the start of the new Premier League season
• Rugby Union, the start of the Rugby Championship
• Cricket, The Hundred continues
• Golf The FedEx St Jude Championship on the USPGA Tour and the ISPS Handa World Invitational on the DP World Tour
• Tennis ATP National Bank Open
• Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

Free tip

South Africa v New Zealand 4.05pm Saturday

The 2022 Rugby Championship will be the tenth edition of the annual southern hemisphere competition involving Argentina, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, starting this weekend. The tournament is to be staged across all competing nations after COVID has meant it has been held in a single country for the last two years.

This year each country will host 3 games, but not evenly across their competing nations. Argentina host Australia twice and South Africa once; Australia will host South Africa twice and New Zealand once; New Zealand will host Argentina twice and Australia once; and South Africa will host New Zealand twice and Argentina once.

This weekend sees the first of two back to back South Africa-New Zealand games and the two sides enter the tournament with contrasting recent fortunes.

South Africa beat Wales 2-1 on the latter’s summer tour whilst New Zealand lost 2-1 at home to Ireland and now have four losses in their last five matches. For New Zealand success is probably winning 1 of these 2 games. If not, having recently changed coach Ian Foster’s entire assistant coaching staff, he will come under real pressure.

In the Ireland series New Zealand looked short of match sharpness and the country’s COVID isolation was put forward as a key factor behind that with the huge restrictions the country faced meaning that rugby sides played mainly domestically through 2020-22 whilst meanwhile the South African provinces turned more to play Northern Hemisphere sides.

Whilst that factor will no doubt reduce in the run up to the 2023 world cup in the short term it was notable that in the Ireland series the New Zealand pack was clearly second best and of course this is South Africa’s huge strength.

South Africa are 4/6 outright and -2 on the handicap. That looks skinny.

15 points South Africa -2 points at 10/11 generally

Proliferation

Among those who have signed up to play South Africa's new T20 league, which is to launch in January and is offering player salaries up to $300,000 are Buttler, Livingstone and Moeen Ali. Each of the six franchises in the league will have a $2m budget for acquiring players.

The league will clash with the ILT20 in the UAE, the back end of the Big Bash in Australia and Bangladesh's BPL and as a result the availability of T20 cricketers in January will be at an absolute premium.

The biggest worry for the franchises in the CSA league and the ILT20, both dominated by IPL owners, was securing a strong roster of overseas players. CSA has a wider pool of top-tier local South African talent, which will form the backbone of that league. The ILT20 is a more global tournament with each team having 12 overseas players out of 18. CSA's league will have 10 South African players in each 17-man squad and the remaining seven from overseas.

South Africa's league will follow the IPL model in its composition of the playing XI: seven local players and a maximum of four overseas players. 

The owners of Mumbai Indians bought the Cape Town team; the Lucknow Super Giants owners got the Durban franchise; the Gqeberha [formerly Port Elizabeth] team went to the owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad; the owners of Rajasthan Royals bought the team based in Paarl; JSW Sports, the co-owners of Delhi Capitals, bought the Pretoria side; and Chennai Super Kings Cricket Limited picked up the Johannesburg franchise.

It is believed that franchises have been guaranteed $1 million in revenues annually from the league. 

A great time to be a star T20 cricketer, as demand for their services outstrips their availability..if their fitness stands up to the packed playing schedules.

StattoBets Dave Monthly Subscription - Soccer - Tennis - Darts

Stattobets write ups, analysis and bets are available to monthly subscribers.

Results = points bet 26860 profit +1132.47 ROI +4.22% Full details here

Monthly subs are £50 a month and can be cancelled at any time. You can sign up here. 

Betting Emporium results

The detailed results page has been updated on 1^st April 2022. They can be found by clicking RESULTS

If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be winning  + £59,082.60 All bets have an ROI +2.90%

A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £63,082.60 a 1477% increase 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 30th-31st July

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing On the flat at Doncaster, Goodwood, Hamilton, Lingfield, Newmarket and Thirsk.
• Football, the Community Shield and the start of the Football League season
• Cricket, an England and South Africa T20 International at Southampton
• Formula One, the Hungarian Grand Prix
• Golf The Wyndham Championship on the USPGA Tour and the Cazoo Open at Celtic Manor on the DP World Tour
• Tennis ATP Citi and Los Cabos Opens
• Commonwealth Games in Birmingham

Free tip

England v South Africa T20I Southampton Sunday 2.30pm

For a number of years the South African T20 team has been led in performance terms by wicket-keeper batsman Quinton de Kock with 1,863 runs in the international format including 11 fifties. However the end of the Kolpak regime which previously took a number of players away from South African cricket and selection and into the English county game for financial rewards, with the weakness of the rand, has given the team more depth again.

Central to that is the return of batsman Rilee Rossouw who prior to leaving South Africa in 2016 had played 14 T20 Internationals with just 327 runs and 2 fifties. For a number of years since Rossouw has been a man in demand on the T20 franchise circuit, and he has played in the IPL, Big Bash, finished the 2018-2019 competition as the leading scorer in the Bangladesh premier league and then won the Pakistan Super League with Quetta (275 runs at a strike rate of 167). At home he was named the CSA T20 batter of the tournament after he averaged 98 across five matches scoring 295 runs.

In UK domestic cricket he moved from Hampshire to Somerset for the 2022 Blast and was top run scorer in the competition with 623 runs at 48 including seven fifties and a hundred

He is the closest South Africa have as a successor to the great AB de Villiers and a solid proposition in the South African Top Batsman market in these games. Across his last 32 matches in the format he has scored 1,193 runs at 51.8 across three competitions in three countries.

For the first two matches of the series he has been priced joint second favourite to de Kock at 100/30. In South Africa’s defeat in the first match of the series in Bristol he was out cheaply then scored 96 not out off 55 balls in Cardiff's second match

X 15 points Rilee Rossouw Top South African batsman at 3/1 plus generally

Squeeze

As they were beaten 2-1 by Ireland in their recent series the New Zealand All Blacks looked a pale shadow of their normal selves. It appears COVID isolation (as a country, and a rugby nation) has done them no favours, nor has the South African provincial sides moving to Northern Hemisphere competitions as Super Rugby has fragmented in this new environment of restrictions on travel. Of course there are doubts about Ian Foster and his coaching team too, and last week all of Foster’s assistants were released.

Meanwhile a couple of years ago there were doubts about whether Andy Farrell was really the man to lead Ireland forward. Their form was mixed for two years and we finally began to see progress at the end of last year’s Six Nations as Ireland beat England in Dublin.

We had to wait until November 2021 to confirm that those promising signs were really Ireland taking the next step. They swept past Japan and Argentina but the one that made everyone sit up was the aesthetically pleasing and perfectly executed victory over the All Blacks.

In the 2022 Six Nations and though there was disappointment in Paris as Sexton missed out through injury, it was a strong championship winning the Triple Crown. Now they have what is clearly their landmark achievement so far. They have won a Test series against the All Blacks in New Zealand.

It’s worth writing here again because there are many Ireland fans who didn’t think they’d see it. This is arguably the greatest achievement in Irish rugby history.

Farrell believed that Ireland’s attack had become too predictable under Joe Schmidt and went about redesigning their attack, encouraging players to have more autonomy in phase play, to make decisions for themselves and not be spoon-fed everything. Attack coach Mike Catt has steadily improved Ireland’s set-piece attack over the past year and the results also speak for themselves. 

Lots of new players such as Hugo Keenan, Caelan Doris, Dan Sheehan, Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen have come through the burgeoning academy systems primarily of Leinster and all of these players and more have become key men under Farrell having either debuted in this era or having been fringe figures before.

The next step of course is the 2023 world cup where Ireland are drawn in a pool with South Africa and Scotland. I have written before about the downsides of doing a draw three years before the tournament, and of course so it turns out that world rankings now are very different to what they were then. Assuming Ireland finish second in the group they would play the winners of the New Zealand/France group and you would have to assume that by then they’d be underdogs to beat either, with the All Blacks more likely to be nearer their usual selves by then.