Weekly Articles "Road to Riches" by Rich 'Tighty' Prew
The Road to Riches Weekend of 22nd-23rd November
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Ascot, Haydock and Huntington and on the all- weather at Newcastle and Wolverhampton.
- Football, Premier League fixtures include Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur
- Cricket, the first Ashes Test in Australia continues in Perth.
- Formula One, the Las Vegas Grand Prix
- NFL, Week 12 fixtures include the Philadelphia Eagles at the Dallas Cowboys.
- Rugby Union, the Autumn International season fixtures include Ireland v South Africa, England v Argentina, Wales v New Zealand and France v Australia
Free Tip
Autumn International Rugby Ireland v South Africa Saturday 5.40pm
The Dublin game on Saturday features two top-four World ranked sides, Ireland 4th hosting comfortably the world’s top ranked team reigning World Champions South Africa.
Ireland drew their two-game series away to South Africa in July 2024, they will be gunning for the win against the world’s current number one side to try and lift them in the world rankings ahead of next month’s draw for Rugby World Cup 2027. They fell to fourth place after England’s win over New Zealand last weekend.
South Africa have not secured a victory at the Aviva Stadium since 2012 after losing the last three times at the venue, falling 29-15 in 2014, 38-3 in 2017 and 19-16 in 2022.
Ireland come into the game after a record win over Australia, admittedly a tired-looking opponent at the end of a long season. A few weeks ago, Ireland lost 26-13 to New Zealand in Chicago, a clunky performance without much attacking threat. Since then they’ve put 40 points plus on Japan and Australia but clearly this is their toughest challenge of the Autumn Series games.
Coach Andy Farrell has taken a bit of flak over the past 12 months, particularly over his refusal to bring through younger players though he has been forced to blood young fly-halves after Jonny Sexton’s retirement over a year ago. The concern is the rest of the team, whilst an established unit playing in a consistent style is ageing. There are signs of some squad development now with Tommy O’Brien cementing a wing spot, Paddy McCarthy starting at loosehead and Ryan Baird excelling at blindside and seemingly locking down that position for the foreseeable future.
For this game centre Stuart McCloskey is injured but Garry Ringrose and Josh Van Der Flier are available again.
Despite being reduced to 14-men with red cards in both Autumn Series games so far South Africa have been relatively untroubled, winning 32-17 against France with a brilliant performance and 34-12 in Turin against Italy last weekend.
In that Italy game South Africa rested their first-choice side and they have impressive strength in depth plus an innovative coaching team. As I stated a few weeks ago that team has expanded their playing style since the 2023 World Cup with an off-loading game to accompany their traditional strengths of forward power, kicking and defence.
The emergence of fly-half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu has been central to that, a huge talent referred to as potentially rugby’s next global superstar to follow Dupont. As a clue to the type of game South Africa want to play they’ve picked Libbok as the bench ten rather than Pollard suggesting a wider game rather than a tactical aerial contest.
South Africa are 4/9, Ireland 7/4 outright for this game with South Africa -6.5 on the handicap.
12 points South Africa -6 points at Evens Bet365 and 10/11 generally
The Big Six
Over the course of the August transfer window there was a significant rise in the number of players bought from other Premier League clubs by the established ‘Big Six’ clubs with some of the other 14 clubs constrained by the league’s financial regulations. The financial strength of the established order is proving difficult to overcome.
The most serious threat has come from Newcastle, under Saudi Arabian ownership, and even their spending has been curbed by the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules (PSR). Likewise, their status as disruptors has been challenged by Isak engineering a transfer to Liverpool.
As well as breaking the British transfer record to sign Isak from Newcastle for £125m, Liverpool paid £40m to sign Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth as part of an extraordinary (and as yet not too successful, but its early days)£400m-plus outlay. Arsenal’s £250m-plus spend included Christian Norgaard from Brentford and Eberechi Eze from Crystal Palace. Manchester City signed James Trafford from Burnley and Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolves. Manchester United signed Matheus Cunha from Wolves and Bryan Mbeumo from Brentford. Tottenham signed Mohammed Kudus from West Ham United. Chelsea signed Facundo Buonanotte (on loan) and Joao Pedro from Brighton & Hove Albion.
Deals of this type were scarce in recent years as the Premier League’s wealth caused inflation in the transfer market. It allowed clubs outside the elite to set prohibitive asking prices for their star players, prompting the ‘Big Six’ to look overseas in search of better value.
In 2018-19, there were just two cases of ‘Big Six’ clubs signing players from the other 14: Riyad Mahrez (Leicester City to Manchester City, £60m) and Rob Green (Huddersfield Town to Chelsea, free). The following season there were three, then six in 2019-20 and just three again in 2020-21, including Manchester City’s record-breaking £100m deal for Jack Grealish from Aston Villa.
Over the past five seasons though, the number of transfers from ‘the 14’ to ‘the six’ has gone up, culminating in 11 so far in 2025-26, with the possibility of more in January. Chelsea’s infatuation with Brighton’s young talents has certainly been a factor, the figures also reflect growing demand for players from Bournemouth in particular.
Aston Villa, Everton, Newcastle or Forest, all have had their frustrations with PSR but PSR has not stopped clubs outside the established elite from contributing a far greater share of the Premier League’s total transfer expenditure than a decade ago. In the five seasons from 2010-11 and 2014-15, spending by the ‘Big Six’ clubs represented up to 66% of the total transfer expenditure in the Premier League. That figure fell as low as 38% in 2018-19 and 34% last season, though it has risen again to 49% this summer.
There are other factors at play. One is an increased sophistication in player recruitment among non-elite clubs. What seemed a novel approach at Southampton in the mid-2010s, acquiring relatively unknown players before selling to bigger Premier League clubs (Liverpool in particular), has since been followed by Leicester, Brighton and, increasingly, Bournemouth, Brentford and others.
Another factor cited concerns the strength of the Premier League relative to other leagues. The most recent edition of Deloitte’s Football Money League, which ranks clubs worldwide by revenue, had six English clubs in the top 10. A further eight English clubs featured in the top 30; West Ham (17th) were one place below Juventus, while Brighton (21st) were ahead of Napoli and Roma.
Premier League clubs’ total transfer expenditure this summer was more than the French, German, Italian and Spanish leagues combined. As English football’s financial power has grown, driven by its global popularity and the huge broadcast and commercial deals that come with it, so much of the game’s wealth and talent has become concentrated in the Premier League.
These two factors have meant that, for example, when Liverpool were looking for a young left-back this summer, their data and qualitative analysis brought up high-class candidates in France, Germany, Italy and Spain but they still concluded that the player who had the best technical and physical profile, and was already assimilated to English football was Kerkez at Bournemouth. Similarly, when Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain were searching for a young central defender with high potential and the right technical profile, they went to Bournemouth and signed Dean Huijsen and Illia Zabarnyi respectively.
Release clauses in player contracts were a factor in some of this summer’s deals. Player and agent power is another factor with Isak and Wissa both rocking the boat to force moves.
It’s difficult for any team to join the Big Six whilst facing regulatory challenges of a type that did not exist until after Chelsea (under Abramovich) and Manchester City (under Sheikh Mansour) began to upset the established order in the 2000s. Financial regulation in European football has reinforced the dominance of the established order.
For Newcastle to be able to sign Isak from Real Sociedad in the summer of 2022 felt symbolic of their rise in status and spending power under their new ownership. To be unable to keep him from Liverpool three years later was a stark illustration of 21st-century football reality. Outperforming some of them on the pitch is one thing, but Newcastle cannot yet overcome the off-field strength of the ‘Big Six’.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page was updated on 1st October 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be inning + £65,159 All bets have an ROI +2.45%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,158, a 1629% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 15th-16th November
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Cheltenham, Uttoxeter and Wetherby.
- Football, England’s World Cup Qualifier in Albania on Sunday
- Cricket, the first Ashes Test in Australia begins next Friday in Perth.
- NFL, Week 11 fixtures include the Detroit Lions at the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football.
- Rugby Union, the Autumn International season fixtures include England v New Zealand and Ireland v Australia.
- Golf, The RSM Classic on the USPGA
- Tennis, ATP World Tour finals in Turin
Free Tip
Autumn International Rugby England v New Zealand Saturday 3.10pm
England enter their third game this Autumn on a run of nine consecutive victories, their best run since the world record-equalling run under Eddie Jones 2016-17.
England marked time for a good while under Steve Borthwick after the 2023 World Cup, as he rebuilt the team. It was their profligacy at Murrayfield in 2024 that led to a bolder attacking plan, which helped them beat Ireland 23-22 in that Six Nations. They experienced tight defeats by France (33-31) and the All Blacks in New Zealand twice (16-15 in Dunedin, and 24-17 at Eden Park), but by the time they resumed in November last year, these close defeats had become a pattern. After losing 24-22 to New Zealand at home then 42-37 in the last play of the game to Australia they lost again 29-20 to South Africa ending the year with two wins in seven Tests, both against Japan.
Since then they have just one defeat 27-22 by Ireland in the first match of the 2025 Six Nations. They went on to beat France and Scotland by a point, turning tight losses into tight wins before beating Italy and Wales to finish second in the Championship.
A relatively new strategy to load the bench with British & Irish Lions finishers has also made a difference. Only World’s best team the Springboks average more points per game in the final quarter of Tests this year. They now score ten points more per match than in 2023 (34 points to 24) and have slowly improved their attacking efficiency year on year, but it is still way off the best. However England make more entries in the 22 on average per match than any other team (12.3) yet only Argentina score fewer points with those chances. In the first two games of this Autumn International series a majority of their try opportunities have come from mauls in the tight forwards.
For this game they miss two normally certain starters Freeman and Chessum injured. The loss of Chessum will be felt as England’s second row depth isn‘t that of most other positions. Meanwhile this is their bench for Saturday: Cowan-Dickie, Genge, Stuart, Cunningham South, Curry, Pollock, Spencer and Marcus Smith, including six British Lions from this summer.
The All Blacks finished second in this summer’s Rugby Championship with 4 wins out of six games, losing a match in Argentina and 43-10 to South Africa in Wellington.
They’ve recently beaten Ireland in Chicago where they were rusty but found a way through, then withstood a Scotland comeback last weekend, 17-0 up to win 26-19 with a brilliant late Damian McKenzie try.
This doesn’t look a vintage All Blacks team, rebuilding in places but they still have match-winners such as Ardie Savea, Beauden Barrett, Will Jordan and Damien McKenzie.
I was surprised to see England 8/11 favourites and -1.5 points on the spread. To my mind New Zealand are the better team, and the Southern Hemisphere International game stronger Australia apart. England have much to prove against the best sides and I’ve yet to see the attacking patterns to produce consistent chances outside the forwards.
15 points New Zealand to win at 21/20 Betfred, Evens generally.
Ashes to Ashes
We are a week away from the 2025-26 Ashes series in Australia, the culmination of what has been a great 18 months for Test cricket. The tone was set by a great West Indies win in Brisbane in January and a great England win in Hyderabad that followed.
It has been a case of expect the unexpected ever since. Bangladesh beat Pakistan, who then defeated England. Sri Lanka overcame New Zealand, who then won in India, who had already seen off both England and Bangladesh. Sri Lanka won a test in England last year and this summer India and England drew a topsy-turvy series 2-2.
The reason it is so unpredictable is that there is no stand-out team right now, like West Indies in the Eighties or the Australians at the turn of the century. Australia and India are the two best teams but are beatable. England can beat anyone but lose to anyone too.
The unpredictable results are due to a couple more reasons. The current pitches are really sporting. You go to Asia and know it will turn a lot. In Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa there is nip, pace and bounce. The only really flat pitch all year was England’s first Test in Pakistan, and they still managed to force a result.
Australian wickets have been, throughout history, the best to score runs on. Since 1980 – the unofficial beginning of covered pitches – Australia has almost always had the highest average per wicket. Australia, India and Pakistan are all roughly at 34 runs per dismissal. Since 2020, Pakistan has kept theirs at 34… but India has been averaging 27, and Australia 28.
That is a huge drop. It is currently easier to score runs in Bangladesh than in Australia. There are a few reasons for this. One is about ICC World Test Championship points. Many teams have begun to prepare their pitches more for bowling, primarily to secure points in home games.
Another is that Australia has an ageing group of fast bowlers. Their back-up seamer is Boland, and he is 36. So, you don't want to have your three most important players bowled into the ground. There is little doubt we see more Australian surfaces with live grass coverage and lateral movement than ever before.
There is also a change in the Kookaburra balls. They decided to change their ball to ensure it didn't go soft so quickly and also to make it produce more exciting cricket, like the alternative Dukes balls. They did this by reinforcing the seam with plastic. The first time one of these balls was used in a Test was in Adelaide for a day/night match in December of 2020. India were bowled out for 36.
Batsmen also give bowlers a chance these days with their method, which means the game is played in fast-forward. We are seeing things we have never seen before. Young players like Harry Brook, Rachin Ravindra and Tristan Stubbs have been raised on Twenty20 and are instinctively aggressive.
At the same time, as expansive batting gives bowlers more of a chance, those bowlers actually have more tricks up their sleeve as they take learnings from the white-ball game into Test cricket.
Mostly, with the Test game being played at a faster pace these days with very few draws (factors like advances in drainage technology are also reducing delays due to weather), Test cricket is a four-day game now. At some stage a formal move to four-day tests would help solve some of the game’s commercial and calendar issues by having a three-Test series completed in three weeks, with matches from Thursday to Sunday each week, like a golf major.
The only downside is what cricket boards would do with the extra days it creates in the calendar. They want to make as much money as possible, and if you shave a day off each Test that opens up time for them to use up in a different way (adding another franchise to a tournament, extending that tournament by a week etc).
Test cricket is great but the World Test Championship is not, a reasonable concept with poor execution. At the moment every team plays a wildly different number of games and that does not create a balanced outcome or fair league table which a two-tier system, with each team playing 10-12 games a year and the same number each cycle, would do.
Looking ahead to the Ashes Australia are coming to the end of era, as signalled by the retirement of David Warner and with their brilliant “big three” fast bowlers Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood in their mid-thirties and Cummins with injury issues at the start of the series. Australia might have a tricky time because at some stage in the next couple of years a few big names could go at once. All bar one of the first test team are 30 years old or older.
The mostly likely outcome is an Australian win this winter, but I expect England to win at least one test and if they can keep 3 or more of their fast-bowling battery of Archer/Wood/Atkinson/Tongue and Potts fit for the series, who knows?
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page was updated on 1st October 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be inning + £65,159 All bets have an ROI +2.45%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,158, a 1629% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 8th-9th November
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Over the jumps at Aintree, Doncaster and Wincanton and on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.
- Football, Premier League fixtures including Manchester City v Liverpool
- NFL, Week 10 fixtures include the Philadelphia Eagles at the Green Bay Packers.
- Rugby Union, the Autumn International season fixtures include England v Fiji, France v South Africa and Scotland v New Zealand
- Formula One, the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo
- Golf, The Bermuda Championship on the USPGA and the World Tour Championship in Dubai on the DP World Tour.
- Tennis, ATP World Tour finals in Turin
Free Tip
Autumn International Rugby France v South Africa 7.10pm Saturday
Two of the top four world ranked sides meet in Paris on Saturday, reigning world Champions South Africa, ranked 1st play hosts France ranked 4t. This is the first meeting between the two teams since the 2023 Rugby World Cup in France, where South Africa won 29-28 in the Quarter-Finals in a classic which France should have won but came up against the formidable major tournament will-to-win of the Springboks.
This significance of this and the Autumn Internationals played in the international window over the next three weeks is that the 2027 World Cup draw takes place in early December and world rankings are frozen at the end of November. The top six ranked sides at that point head a pool each for Australia in two years’ time.
South Africa have won eight of their last nine matches against France however each of their last three victories has come by margins of just three points or fewer. Meanwhile France have won 15 of their last 16 matches at the Stade de France, the exception being that loss against South Africa in 2023. They’ve won each of their five since then by an average margin of 23 points, scoring 30+ points on each occasion.
South Africa have won 17 of their last 20 matches, with their three defeats in that run all coming in The Rugby Championship (which they won again this year with four wins out of six whilst trying out players and combinations midway through a World Cup cycle). They’ve won 21 of their last 23 fixtures outside of that tournament including their last eight in a row.
South Africa warmed up for this game beating Japan 61-7 at Wembley last week. A key loss is world class loose-head prop Ox Nche injured but one thing the South Africans do not lack at any position is strength in depth.
Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu has started the last four Springboks Test matches in the number 10 jersey and starts again over the more experienced Libbok or Pollard.
For France Dupont is still out but this is a dangerous team that won the 2025 Six Nations with 4 wins out of 5, missing out on a Grand Slam losing by a point at Twickenham butchering multiple try-scoring opportunities. The first-choice squad didn’t tour New Zealand this summer and may be fresher than South Africa coming to the end of a long season.
Louis Bielle-Biarrey has scored the most tries of any player for a Tier 1 nation in 2025 (8), while Damian Penaud is just one try away from overtaking Serge Blanco as the all-time top try scorer in men’s rugby (38 each currently), but has failed to score in each of his last five outings against South Africa. Both are the spearhead of a tremendous back division.
Prices for the game are South Africa -1 and 4/5 outright, France Evens. I think I would try France at odds-against for value, but not available.
Bet365 also offer an over/under points market, priced up as o/u 51.5 points. I have searched everywhere else and can’t find it but will recommend it for those that can: the over.
Global rugby is a changing game, much more emphasis on attack, offloads from 1-15, creating chances from the aerial game too. France have tremendous try-scorers and in the last two years South Africa have really expanded their style to keep pace with the changes taking place in the game. South Africa still place a huge emphasis on their set-piece, kicking and defence but one significant development has made a big difference to their attacking improvement and that’s carrying lower and looking to offload.
Take South Africa game point totals in their six games in the rugby championship this year:
60, 52, 41 (at Eden Park, New Zealand), 53 (at Wellington, New Zealand), 92 and 56.
Then take France in 2025 game by game points:
46, 60, 58 in New Zealand this summer
43 (Wales scored 0), 51,97,71,51 in the Six Nations
I checked the weather forecast, dry for Saturday night. I think the over is much more likely than under 51.5 points.
20 points over 51.5 points 10/11 Bet365
Congestion Charge
Between 2015 and 2022 England were the pre-eminent side in white-ball cricket.
Yet since the 50-over World Cup two years ago, England have won ten out of 27 games and no side has had a worse record against teams ranked in the world’s top eight. England are ranked No 8 in the world in that format at present in between Afghanistan and West Indies and struggling to qualify for the next World Cup.
Brendon McCullum took over as coach at the start of 2025, before the tour to India and the Champions Trophy. There have been 13 ODIs since only four of which have been won. There have been mistakes around selection and strategy, especially before and during the Champions Trophy.
In the recent New Zealand Series England were 6-56, 5-81 and 7-102 on seaming pitches, struggling to find the right balance between attack and defence against the moving ball.
Trying to succeed across formats in a congested schedule is tough, but the 50 over game is especially tough for England to succeed in currently because the International players no longer play the format outside ODIs. The Domestic 50 over competition runs concurrent with the 100 and is essentially a development competition for the second tier of English professional cricketers. The conditions for success that enabled England to set the benchmark in that golden period after 2015 no longer exist and are unlikely to in the future.
That World Cup winning team had an outstanding specialist captain in Eoin Morgan and contained players who had extensive prior experience in domestic list A cricket.
It is early days for Harry Brook, only nine matches in charge of the 50-over team so far, and he is playing across all three formats and his captaincy very much has the sense of learning on the job.
While Trevor Bayliss was England’s coach across formats in the period of sustained success, Morgan, as a white-ball specialist, had the time to be able to plan and prepare for each assignment, a luxury that will be denied McCullum and Brook. While Morgan’s team had its share of multi-format players, it also had a specific white-ball identity.
The 2019 World Cup-winning squad included some multi-format players, such as Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, but there was a core for whom white-ball internationals were their priority. The delineation between formats was emphasised especially by the examples of those not selected, like Stuart Broad and James Anderson, who were saved for Test cricket. The present policy is to align the squads closer together.
The present belief is that the best Test players are also the best 50-over players, as seen by the batting line-ups being essentially the same. In practice, though, whether the strategy survives the gruelling and congested fixture list remains to be seen.
Consider the list A experience, outside of ODIs. Of the current team Jamie Smith, Jacob Bethell and Brook have played 46 non-international list A games between them; Buttler, Alex Hales and Jason Roy the top three in 2019, played 122 50-over matches before their international careers began in earnest.
When the new participation agreements for the Hundred kick in next year, England will wave goodbye to their players for three months of the calendar, two months of the Indian Premier League and the month of the Hundred.
It is no secret that administrators are tiring of the 50-over format. The present edition of the Asia Cup is T20 rather than 50 overs to fit in with the demands of the global schedule. The next ICC event is the T20 World Cup in early 2026 but is a likely precursor of future trends, with ODIs feeling the squeeze. By the time the 2027 50-over tournament comes around in South Africa, there will have been seven World Cups in eight years.
No one plays as much Test cricket as England, who have played a quarter as many Tests again as their nearest rivals, India and Australia, over the past decade. Achieving simultaneous and sustained success across formats will not be straightforward.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st October 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be inning + £65,159 All bets have an ROI +2.45%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,158, a 1629% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 1st-2nd November
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, Over the jumps at Ascot, Ayr and Wetherby and on the all-weather at Newcastle.
- Football, Premier League fixtures including Tottenham v Chelsea
- NFL, Week 9 fixtures include the Kansas City Chiefs at the Buffalo Bills.
- Rugby Union, the start of the Autumn International season including England v Australia, Ireland v New Zealand in Chicago and Wales v Argentina
- Cricket, New Zealand v England ODI in Wellington
- Golf, The Worldwide Technology Championship in Mexico on the USPGA and the Abu Dhabi Championship on the DP World Tour.
- Tennis, ATP Moselle Open
Free Tip
England v Australia Autumn International Rugby, Saturday 3.10pm
England begin their Autumn International series with this game followed by fixtures against Fiji, New Zealand and Argentina.
A year ago England lost to the “big three” in successive weeks 24-22 to New Zealand, 37-42 to Australia and then 20-29 to South Africa. Subsequently after the 9-point first-round Six Nations defeat in Dublin England have won seven straight Test matches including beating France at home and two wins in Argentina.
It is a shame that they’re not facing South Africa this year but England should be targeting at least three wins this autumn.
A concern is that England have had barely any training time before this Test. They sacrificed their usual training camp in Girona, Spain, to hand back the players to their clubs for one more Gallagher Prem match after the RFU organised this Wallabies game outside of World Rugby’s international window.
England met for just three days last week, mostly for meetings, and then reconvened on Sunday night in Surrey to start their preparations in earnest on Monday. This is unfortunate as England have just recruited a new backs/attack coach Lee Blackett (from Bath Rugby) and it’s a stretch to expect much to be put into game-plans with such limited preparation time.
England’s team has Tommy Freeman moved to outside centre for England’s first Test of the autumn with Ollie Lawrence missing out.Steve Borthwick is leaning heavily on the cohesion of Northampton Saints by picking one of their players at scrum half and in both centre positions outside George Ford at fly-half for Saturday’s game. It appears given the limited time with the new attack coach the plan is an aerial assault and the power game in midfield.
Aerial contests have become a major part of the game in the last year as a result of a law change in 2024 that prohibited the use of escort runners/blockers preventing the attacking player's path to the ball. As a result often out wide there are frequent one-on-one contests. England have George Ford for pinpoint kicks and two wingers renowned for their aerial prowess. Australia selected their team second and have picked a 5-3 bench rather than go 6-2 as England did and try to match them in an arm-wrestle.
In the England forwards Ellis Genge and Will Stuart are only just back playing after the Lions tour and Tom Curry just fit again after his wrist operation. All three are on a strong looking bench alongside Henry Pollock and Finn Smith.
Australia have issues too. They’ve already played eleven test matches in 2025 with a full Autumn campaign to come, three tests against the British and Irish lions, six in the Rugby Championship and then and a very physical Fiji team so there might be is a degree of fatigue. They warmed up for the game winning in Japan 19-15 in a rain-soaked game.
Australia tore England’s defence apart in this fixture last year which brought Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii to global attention. They have cut the British & Irish Lions and South Africa to ribbons at times in 2025 too. Unfortunately, key players Skelton, Ikitau, Tom Hooper and O’Connor are all unavailable with the game taking place outside the European International window. There are ongoing half-back issues too though former World Cup fly-half Carter Gordon comes back into the international frame following confirmation of his return to the Queensland Reds after a stint in the NRL. Gordon started at No.10 in five Tests during 2023.
Before I looked at prices for this game I made it Australia +5/+6, clearly underdogs but probably within a score on the spread. I then see that Australis are up at +9.5 and 11/4 outright. I think +9.5 is clear value given this is the first game of the Autumn for England in a way I probably wouldn’t have done if it was the 3rd or 4th game with England fully in-sync.
15 points Australia +9.5 points at 10/11 generally
Into the Void
As their NFC East divisional rivals the Dallas Cowboys struggled to properly pay their best players in timely fashion leading to the blockbuster trade of Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers, the Philadelphia Eagles cracked the code on how to manage the cap while keeping a championship-calibre team together.
Beyond knowing whom to pay and when to pay them, the Eagles have maximised the use of voidable years in their contracts. As explained recently in the Wall Street Journal, the Eagles have $380m attached to cap charges that will land in voidable years of current contracts. That’s more than double the amount of any other team. The current annual salary cap for each NFL team is $279.2m.
All of these charges become due in 2030 and beyond, after the point when the current NFL deals expire in 2029. There is an understandable expectation that this will propel the salary cap up but still, it’s a very different approach to roster and cap management to front-load the talent on the roster in the short term, potentially at the expense of a much weaker roster down the line when these bills become due.
Spending now with the cap charges hitting later requires an owner who is willing to write the cheques as it is cash spending upfront. Getting an owner willing to put the cash up to get the void years is the reason why not all teams do it. It's about cash spending, not cap spending. Void years require bonuses. Not every team is “cash rich”. Not every team has an appetite for risk that the Eagles do.
The key to the voidable-year approach is the ongoing growth of the cap. It makes the relative cap charge smaller, because dollars paid in one year have a reduced impact when they hit the cap in future years. And, in those future years, new voidable-year contracts can push current cash even further down the road, when the cap will be even higher.
For the Eagles it is all about extending their Super Bowl window as long as possible before rebuilding is necessary as player financial demands begin to exceed the salary cap flexibility a successful team has. It also requires the Eagles to pay as many of the right players as possible, and to refrain from paying the wrong ones.
The approach has helped to deliver a Super Bowl win. It could lead to more. And their status as contenders will continue to deliver as long as they draft talented players, develop them, and reward the ones whom they believe to be critical to current and future success.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st October 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be inning + £65,159 All bets have an ROI +2.45%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,158, a 1629% increase.
The Road to Riches Weekend of 25th-26th October
Coming up this weekend
- Horse Racing, On the flat at Doncaster, Newbury and Wolverhampton. Over the jumps at Cheltenham and Kelso.
- Football, Premier League fixtures including Aston Villa v Manchester City
- NFL, Week 8 fixtures include the Green Bay Packers at the Pittsburgh Steelers
- Formula One, the Mexican Grand Prix
- Cricket, New Zealand v England ODI in Mount Maunganui
- Tennis, ATP Rolex Paris Masters
Free Tip
Gallagher Prem Rugby Bath v Bristol 3.05pm Saturday
Two teams who have won 3 of their first 4 league games of the season meet in an always feisty local derby this weekend.
Bath lost 22-20 at Leicester last weekend to the last kick of the game to lose their first game of the season to fall to third in the early league table. Not a great performance by their standards, especially from Finn Russell who had an off day but also they struggled with Leicester’s uncompromising approach up front.
Bristol are known for their explosive attacking game, all high tempo and work rate, which they have displayed in both home matches this season, putting 42 points on Leicester in the first game of the season and 49 against Gloucester last week.
Away performances have been less prolific, a 18-14 loss at Exeter and a 50-17 loss at Saracens.
This game is their first meeting since the Play-off semi-final last season at Bath which the hosts won 34-20. Funnily enough the point spread for this game is Bristol +15.5. That’s an interesting spread, getting above the key number of two converted tries (14 points) against a team that, in their home games, has beaten Sale by 12 points and Gloucester by 21 points so far this season. Bristol are a better team than Gloucester and at similar levels to Sale.
11 points Bristol +15.5 points at 10/11 generally
Giving rugby wings
Newcastle rugby has struggled over several years at the foot of the Gallagher Premiership rugby table, protected by the absence of relegation, finishing bottom in each of the past three seasons.
Prospects looked gloomy for the current season with a recruitment freeze in place.
Their fortunes were then transformed with a takeover this summer by global energy drinks company Red Bull. For the league itself, the arrival of such a big company is a sign of the green shoots of recovery, following on from increased television audiences and a long-term broadcast deal with TNT Sports and part of a plan to make clubs as investable as possible rather than relying on funding from wealthy supporter-benefactors to survive.
Newcastle have been desperate for new investment, there were genuine fears that they could go the same way as Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish and go out of business altogether.
Instead Newcastle can now draw upon the expertise of Red Bull and their wide sporting portfolio. Newcastle's new owners will use their experience in how to market teams and athletes to generate further interest in the English club game.
Part of their plan will be to invest in talent and a pathway and there's a huge amount of talent in the North East.
Given Red Bull's record of turning struggling football and Formula 1 teams into superpowers and heavyweight investment in top-end cycling and ice hockey, they are surely not going to stand for scraping the bottom of the Prem for long.
When the club opened season ticket sales after the news they recorded the highest demand for 10 years, up 197% on 2024's first-day trading.
In the short term the takeover came a bit late for this season. The recruitment cycle was over in France for this season for example but Red Bull made funds available before completion to end the recruitment freeze.
All bar one subsequent signing have contracts that run to the end of the season, suggesting they are stop-gap signings, while bigger names are lined up.
Newcastle are bound by the Prem's spending cap. Red Bull is worth billions, but can only spend £6.4m in wage with one marquee player excluded from that limit.
Credits exist for producing home-grown talent and penalties are liable for fielding too many players who do not qualify for England.
Red Bull's entry into the Prem marks the end of a year-long search for a buyer for Newcastle. Early last autumn, long-time club owner Semore Kurdi brought in A&W Capital, specialists in the sale of sports teams, to find someone to take the club on.
It was a pressing concern not just for Kurdi, who has put many millions of his own money into the club since becoming owner in 2011, or Newcastle, but the league as a whole.
After the demise of Worcester Warriors, Wasps and London Irish, another club going under would have reduced the Prem to nine teams. Each round would involve only four fixtures and the gate receipts and product for broadcasters and sponsors would shrink. Other top-flight clubs, along with CVC Partners who part-own the league, were prepared to loan Newcastle £4m to keep them upright.
Newcastle's dire circumstances and Kurdi's desire to see the club in good hands meant Red Bull could cut a deal with little initial cost beyond taking on responsibility for the club's £39m debts.
The plan to rename Newcastle Falcons as Newcastle Red Bulls was simple and supported.
Prem Rugby hopes it is the start of a new sustainable era, in which clubs are owned and grown by corporate investors, rather than propped up by local business owners and benefactors.
Betting Emporium results
The detailed results page has been updated on 1st October 2025. They can be found by clicking RESULTS
If you bet £10 per point on every recommended bet since launch you would be inning + £65,159 All bets have an ROI +2.45%
A £4000 bank betting £10 a point on all selections would now be worth £69,158, a 1629% increase.
