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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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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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. 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 11th-12th April

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, The Grand National at Aintree plus on the flat at Great Yarmouth, Over the jumps at Chepstow and Newcastle and on the all- weather at Southwell.
• Football, Premier League fixtures include Manchester United v Leeds United
• Rugby Union, European Champions Cup Quarter Finals
• Cricket, the IPL continues
• Golf, the RBC Heritage Tournament on the USPGA Tour  next week.
• Tennis, ATP Barcelona and BMW Opens

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European Champions Cup Rugby Quarter finals

Glasgow v Toulon Saturday 3pm

7 of 8 higher seeds won their matches in the last sixteen last weekend leaving the Quarter-Final line-up this weekend as follows:

Bordeaux -2.5 v Toulouse

A repeat of the semi-final last weekend, Bordeaux won 35-18 on their way to winning the competition

Bath -10.5 v Northampton

English Prem Champions against last season’s finalists

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Glasgow -10.5 v Toulon

URC leaders against Quarter-finalists last year

Leinster -18.5 v Sale

Losing semi-finalists last year against the outsider of the eight teams left and lowest seed remaining

The top half of the draw is clearly the strength remaining where most would expect the eventual winner to come from.

Glasgow/Toulon is a game between the second and seventh seeds, Toulon finished second in Bath’s pool, both teams winning three of four games, Bath gaining more bonus points to secure the higher seeding.

Last weekend both teams had narrow wins against South African opposition at home. Glasgow beat the Bulls 25-21 having been behind in the second half. Toulon beat the Stormers 28-27 holding on at the end when they went down to 13 men, and the Stormers thought they had won the match with a very late try, having turned down a drop goal opportunity. However, the referee deemed there was insufficient evidence of a grounding and Toulon held on to win by the skin of their teeth.

Domestically Glasgow are near the end of an exceptional season, four points clear at the top of the URC with 11 wins out of 14. Toulon meanwhile are down in 11^th in the French top 14 with only 9 wins in 20 matches.

Glasgow contain the core of the Scottish national team, six current internationals started last weekend. Toulon supplement their French core with big money overseas signings Brex the Italian centre, White the Scottish scrum half an the English lock Ribbans. Not that consistent a team this season but certainly with big game potential when at full strength.

Glasgow are 10.5-point favourites. They certainly should be favoured at home but 11.5 points feels excessive for a knockout game against such experienced opponents.

11 points Toulon +10.5 points at 10/11 generally

Reviewing the 2025 NFL season

The NFL experienced the end of an era with the 2025 season after that of 2018-25 where Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs replaced the previous Patriots era by keeping the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens at bay for years and denying the 49ers two titles in head-to-head Super Bowls.

After the Chiefs missed the playoffs in 2025 and Mahomes tore his ACL, the AFC was considered to be wide open. Yet the Ravens missed the playoffs, the Steelers lost another wild card game and the Bills still couldn’t get to a Super Bowl with Josh Allen.

Because those teams still failed to advance without the Chiefs in sight John Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin, and Sean McDermott are all gone from their long-term Head Coaching jobs. In 2026 the NFL has 10 new head coaches and 21 new offensive coordinators.

In 2025 Super Bowl 60 was the NFC’s to lose, and that’s why the NFC Championship Game between the Rams and Seahawks, the two best teams in the league, was de facto the real title game.

NFL history has shown us that it is harder than ever to repeat, and with 2025 being such an outlier, this might be one of the toughest seasons to take any long-lasting lessons from. Let’s recap some of the lessons learned from the 2025 NFL season

In the fallout of Super Bowl 60 between two teams who had zero fourth-quarter lead changes in any of their playoff games while the rest of the NFL produced a record 14 lead changes, the immediate reviews on the 2025 NFL season were not positive.

• A record seven new teams won their division, none were favoured to do so, and the only repeat winner (Eagles in NFC East) was the only division that hadn’t had any repeat winners since 2004.

• Of the top seven pre-season favourites, only the Bills won a playoff game, and the Ravens, Chiefs, Lions, and Commanders didn’t even make the playoffs.
• The Seahawks and Patriots combined for the most improbable preseason odds of any Super Bowl matchup in NFL history.
• The 2025 AFC had five teams win at least 12 games, the first time that’s ever happened in one conference since the 1970 merger.
• The 2025 NFC West became the first division to ever have three teams win at least 12 games, and that happened largely at the expense of the 3-14 Arizona Cardinals, who were 0-6 against them.

Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Jayden Daniels, and Patrick Mahomes were all preseason MVP favourites who were injured at some point in the season, and none of their teams had a winning record. The MVP race became a two-way battle of attrition between Matthew Stafford and Drake Maye. Micah Parsons’ torn ACL cleared the path to a Defensive Player of the Year award for Myles Garrett, who just barely broke the single-season sack record for a 5-win Cleveland team.

Two lessons reinforced harshly in Super Bowl 60 is that you need to have an offensive line without a major hole and you have to be able to rush the passer without blitzing. Once again, that proved to be the difference in who won and lost a championship in the NFL:

• Patriots rookie left tackle Will Campbell allowed 14 pressures in Super Bowl 60, the most by any one player in any game this season.
• The Patriots gave up 6 sacks to go along with the 15 sacks in the first three playoff games, the 21 sacks the most ever allowed in a single postseason.
• Sam Darnold and Drake Maye both had an average time to throw of 2.83 seconds in Super Bowl 60.
• Maye was pressured on 52.8% of his dropbacks (his second-highest game of 2025) while only facing a blitz on a season-low 13.2% of his plays.
• Darnold was pressured on 41.5% of his dropbacks while facing a blitz on 56.1% of his plays.

It’s nearly impossible to win a game in the NFL if your pressure rate is practically 40% higher than the blitz rate. Even Patrick Mahomes was at +38.1% (2024 Eagles) and +32.4% (2020 Buccaneers) in his blowout Super Bowl losses while Maye was +39.6% this year.

With the Patriots going from a 4-13 season to the Super Bowl, it does serve as a reminder that no team should be waiting on some 5-year plan to improve. You really can do it much quicker in the NFL with the right pieces, but it still starts with making sure you have the right coach, quarterback, and a support system around them that’s going to largely come from the draft and from smart free-agent signings instead of very expensive ones.

With two of the more dominant Super Bowl winners led by Darnold and Jalen Hurts the last two years, it does go to show that you don’t need the most expensive quarterback in the NFL to win it all. 

The Road to Riches Weekend of 4th-5th April

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, On the flat at Musselburgh, Over the jumps at Carlisle, Haydock, Huntingdon and Newton Abbot and on the all- weather at Wolverhampton.
• FA Cup, Quarter finals this weekend
• Rugby Union, European Champions Cup Round of 16
• Cricket, the IPL continues
• Golf, the Masters begins next Thursday
• Tennis, ATP Monte Carlo Masters

 

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Aintree Grand National Festival

We have added the Aintree Grand National Festival (Full Package) 9th-11th April 2026 to our website for £99 here 

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European Rugby Champions Cup Last Sixteen

Harlequins v Sale 8pm Saturday

Two of the most disappointing English PREM sides this season are drawn together in the last sixteen of the ERCC this weekend.

Both Harelequins and Sale have only won 3 of their 12 league matches and are in 9^th and 7^th in the ten-team league respectively. As the top 8 in the league qualify for next season’s ERCC both sides need improved form at the tail end of the season.

Harlequins finished second in their ERCC pool winning 3 of 4 games finishing behind Leinster but ahead of Leicester, La Rochelle, Bayonne and the Stormers. They were helped by playing at home to a weakened Stormers team and winning but had a huge win at the end of the pool at La Rochelle to secure the sixth seed.

Sale finished third in Pool 1 behind Glasgow and Toulouse but ahead of Saracens. They too beat weakened South African opposition the Sharks at home and also beat a French side, Clermont, away. The ended the pool stages as the eleventh seed.

With the knockout stages draw fixed the winners of this match will most likely travel to Dublin to play Leinster in the Quarter-Finals, a very tough task for either.

Harlequins problems this season have been three-fold. 1 Instability in the coaching team 2. Injuries and 3. Lack of defensive structure.

After Head Coach Danny Wilson’s abrupt departure just before the start of this season Jason Gilmore was promoted from defence coach to senior coach and recently he has been confirmed as the coach through next season.

On the one hand promising a global search only to promote the person who was already in the building presents an optical issue. Particularly when that coach, in this case Gilmore, had a grand total of two league wins this season at the time. There are mitigating factors behind Quins’ rotten season, but in footballing terms it would be the equivalent of Tottenham Hotspur having given Igor Tudor a five-year contract as manager.

Quins are also in a spell of huge player upheaval with players either retired or gone to other clubs since 2021: Danny Care, centre Andre Esterhuizen, top props Joe Marler, Wilco Louw and Will Collier, young locks Hugh Tizard, George Hammond and Dino Lamb, and others including Mike Brown, Louis Lynagh and Irne Herbst and this season injuries have hampered those expected to be leaders.

Last weekend 20 first team squad players were out injured including the Argentinian forward signings Guido Petti, Boris Wenger and Pedro Delgado alongside England prop Fin Baxter. Little has been seen of the Scotland hooker George Turner or scrum-half Stu Townsend.

Out of nowhere last weekend Harlequins then won 18-14 against Bristol in Cardiff. They had not won away in the league for more than a year, they had not won anywhere in the league since October, and they were without England star Marcus Smith and forced to play England wing Caden Murley in the centre.

For Sale meanwhile, defense coach Byron McGuigan had left for Steve Borthwick’s England across the Six Nations window, leaving Mike Forshaw to step back in and rebuild defensive structures that have shown uncomfortable fragility this season. Until the defensive system stabilises, this vulnerability will keep surfacing at the worst possible moments.

Last weekend Sale were also improved for much of a 31-26 home defeat to Champions Bath, were two scores ahead during the first-half, but faded later on with only 25% possession in the second half.

Despite injuries to the Curry brothers this is a team that includes two England front-rowers, George Ford at 10 and Tom Roebuck on the wing.

Looking at the odds for the game, its Harlequins 8/13 Sale 13/10. Harelquins opened -5 on the spread and the line moved to -2.5 quickly.

Assessing which way to go is a matter of deciding which of two disappointing teams might be closer to turning round their fortunes and getting stability in their defensive structure. With their recent coaching certainty, for the first time this season, that is probably Harlequins and they are at home too. On the downside, they remain injury hit.

Reflecting a lack of depth in the competition in recent years, there have been only 2 away wins from 24 games at the last 16 stage of the competition over the last three years. Getting the home team here, in a game of two disappointing teams, at less than a three-point penalty goal, is the way to go.

11 points Harlequins -2.5 points at 10/11 widely available

Close to the sun

Wolverhampton Wanderers will be relegated at the end of this season, ending an eight-year stay in the Premier League.

In 2018, Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion both dropped into the Championship after 10 and eight years respectively of top-flight football. In 2023, Southampton’s 11-year stint came to an end, while Leicester City went down after eight seasons after their title win and they might suffer another relegation this season.

Clubs who win promotion and survive their first season sometimes solidify their Premier League status for a while. Sunderland will do so this season, Leeds might, Burnley probabv won’t.  Sometimes clubs exceed expectations for a season or two, or even more.

The problems do not afflict everyone.

Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur have been in the Premier League every season since its inception more than 30 years ago. Manchester City were relegated in its early days and Aston Villa and Newcastle United more recently, but with their current, wealthy owners, all three are secure notwithstanding the multiple Premier League charges hanging over City.

For everyone else, the challenge is different. Of the current 20 Premier League clubs outside that group, only West Ham United (14 years) and Crystal Palace (13) have been there for more than a decade. Seven clubs have been there for five years or fewer. Outside the ‘big six’ and Everton, there have been just 14 stints of 10 years or more in the Premier League among all of the other clubs.

On one hand, it adds interest to the league that the teams below the top echelons are changed on a regular basis. On the other, it creates a genuine question of the right approach for clubs striving for promotion. Push too far in a PSR era, and problems arise from over-investment. One such example of where that has gone badly wrong, of poor recruitment on big wages, are Leicester. If their 2015-16 title triumph is viewed as an astonishing aberration for the established elite, then most of the other clubs spend their time in the Premier League simply trying to avoid dropping out of it, some in better ways than others.

The Road to Riches Weekend of 28th-29th March

Coming up this weekend

• Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Over the jumps at Stratford and Uttoxeter and on the all- weather at Kempton and Southwell.
• International Friendlies, including England v Uruguay and Japan
• Formula One, the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka
• Golf, the Texas Open on the USPGA
• Tennis, ATP US Clay Court Championships and ATP Opens in Bucharest and Marrakech

Aintree Grand National Festival

We have added the Aintree Grand National Festival (Full Package) 9th-11th April 2026 to our website for £99 here 

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The 2026 Masters 

Chris Gotterup is making his first Masters start in 2026. He will join Dave Hill in 1968 and Mark Wilson in 2011 as players since World War II to make their Masters debut with at least four official PGA Tour wins. Since July 2025, he has won the Scottish Open edging past McIlroy in the final pairing, finished tied third in The Open at Royal Portrush, competed in his first Tour Championship and started the 2026 season with victories in Honolulu and Phoenix. He’s become a four-time winner in his third year on the PGA Tour and has four top 25s this season and three wins in his last 15 events. 

A Year ago he was ranked 219th in the Official World Golf Rankings, he’s now seventh but at prices up to 60-1 just creeps into the top 25 of the betting market for the Masters. This obviously reflects the difficulty of competing at Augusta as a rookie, where only Fuzzy Zoeller in 1979 has won on his first appearance.

Yet Gotterup’s game looks like it will suit Augusta well, mainly his length off the tee but also his approach game too. When he first entered the tour he was a classic bomb and gouge guy that didn’t really know where the ball was going but his game has rounded with control of his speed.

Here are his OWGR rankings this season:

5^th in driving distance

17^th Strokes Gained

24^th Strokes Gained off the tee

28^th Strokes Gained Approach

99^th putting

Clearly we’d like the putting stat to be better on what are (weather permitting) always fast greens but the rest of his game looks well set for the Masters.

As I write, and we want as many places as we can get, firms are ¼ 1,2,3,4,5,6. In ten days or so there should be 8 to 10 places around the industry, so I would wait a few days for those marketing offers and be prepared to accept a few points less on the price to get those places.

10 points each-way Chris Gotterup to win the Masters at 55-1 Betfred (1/5,1,2,3,4,5,6), 55-1 Bet365 (1/5 1,2,3,4) 50-1 William Hill ((1/5,1,2,3,4,5,6)

2026 FIFA World Cup Thoughts

The 12 groups for the 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, were drawn in December. This tournament will be the first to include 48 teams, an expansion from 32 and begins on June 11^th.

Standout group matches will include Mbappe’s France facing Haaland’s Norway in Group I, Brazil vs Morocco in Group C, Portugal against Colombia in Group K and Spain clashing with Uruguay in Group H. The USA will be pleased with a fairly kind group, although it will depend, like five other groups, on which teams make it through the play-offs in March.

Current Ante-Post odds are:

Spain 9/2

England 11/2

France 8/1

Brazil 8/1

Argentina 8/1

Portugal 12/1

Germany 12/1

Netherlands 20/1

Norway 28/1

Italy 33/1

Each way terms are half the odds, two places.

Amongst the key themes:

The hosts the United States, Mexico and Canada all have beatable opponents in their group

Belgium will fancy their chances of topping Group G, with an opener against Egypt looking likely to set the tone. Games against Iran and New Zealand, the competition’s lowest-ranked side should then allow them to progress comfortably.

Spain will be satisfied. Cape Verde did well to even reach the World Cup and it would be a major surprise were they to lay a glove on the European champions first up. Saudi Arabia aren’t as good as they were four years ago and Uruguay could just as easily self-destruct as thrive. 

England drawn in a group with Croatia, Panama and Ghana is fairly tough when you’re a top seed. If they manage to win the group and get to the last 16, they could find themselves facing Mexico in Mexico City followed by, in theory, Brazil in Miami. 

Scotland have a tough task with both five-time world champions Brazil and 2022 World Cup semi-finalists Morocco standing in their way. Brazil vs Morocco is a great start to the group.

In Group I a France and Senegal rematch, the opening game for both sides, is fun.

The phrase “Group of Death” became less valid once the World Cup was expanded to 32 teams in 1998. With 48 teams, of which 32 will make the knockout stage, it looks almost impossible for any team with serious aspirations to feel endangered. 

A £4000 bank (see FAQ re bank-roll requirements) betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,244.70 a 1631% increase