European Challenge Cup....

I posted this last year....looking good.

Dragons to Win the European Challenge Cup 20-1Dragons have Bayonne, Bristol and Bucharesti in their group. Bristol really won't be interested in this fixture what with their continuing success at the top of the Guiness Premiership...Bayonne are struggling for survival in France and I'd be vastly impressed if they send nothing but reserve teams out and I feel they will be paying lip service to the tournament. Bucharest are left and are not to be underestimate but should still finish bottom of the pile.I really think Dragons could top their group giving them a home tie in the Quarters. If we backed the Dragons with £25.00 that would give us £480.00 to play with to make us a profit. If they don't win the group I'm quite sure they could qualify as one of the best second place teams.
posted by PRBetHeads 5:11 AM 0 comments

Dragons are playing Brive at HOME in the quarter finals.

Dragons v Borders - Friday 26th Jan - KO 7.30PM

Hello folks, it's been a while

At first glance this looks like a gimme.

The Dragons - High flying European Challenge Quarter Finalists….recent victors over top of the GP, Bristol and European champions, Munster……. facing the lowly Borders, dead bottom of the Magners League. This is far from a gimme.

Cussiter makes a remarkable recovery after only nine weeks and returns to try and make a last ditch effort to make the Scotland squad and the ever dependable McCrae is in at full-back. Scotland Sevens captain Scott Forrest will be making his first start for the Borders Gregor Townsend will also feature for the Borders tonight in what looks like a decent team – more than capable of a hijack tonight in Gwent.

Dragons have lost…Morgan, Charvis , Cooper and Goughy to the Welsh squad – all massive presences for the team. Brewy is also out with his ankle. It promises to be a very cold night in Gwent with an un-selected Micheal Owen leading the side. This is a very understrength team with only Sid, Emerick, Ringer, Luke, being regular first XV’ers. Aled Thomas is starting for the first time this season and Alex Walker will be his scrum-half partner – players to look out for in the future.

I think the bookies have this wrong and will be awful lot closer than people realise. Borders could even nick it.

Form: Newport Gwent Dragons beat Bayonne 32-15 in France on Friday to secure a home quarter-final against Brive in the European Challenge Cup. The Dragons have won six of their last seven encounters in all competitions, and have not been beaten at Rodney Parade since the Scarlets were the visitors on September 12. Border Reivers have lost their last ten matches in all competitions since the Reivers beat Parma 35-3 at Netherdale on October 20. They have not won outside Scotland since a 32-25 victory in L'Aquila in October 2005. Border Reivers have won just one of the seven previous matches they have played against the Dragons: 43-5 at Netherdale in May 2006.

Dragons: 15 Gareth Wyatt, 14 Gareth Chapman, 13 Paul Emerick, 12 Ashley Smith, 11 Aled Brew, 10 Aled Thomas, 9 Alex Walker, 8 Nic Fitisemanu, 7 Jamie Ringer, 6 Michael Owen (c), 5 Peter Sidoli, 4 Luke Charteris, 3 Jamie Corsi, 2 Ben Daly, 1 Adam Black Replacements: 16 Richard Wilkes, 17 Gethin Robinson, 18 Andrew Hall, 19 James Harris, 20 Richard Fussell, 21 Phil Dolman, 22 Gareth Baber

Borders: 15 Calum MacRae, 14 Simon Danielli, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Ben MacDougall, 11 Garry Law, 10 Gregor Townsen, 9 Chris Cusiter (c), 8 Scott Forrest, 7 Scott Newlands, 5 Opeta Palepoi, 4 John Dalziel, 3 Bruce Douglas, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Ryan Grant Replacements: 16 Steve Scott, 17 Ed Kalman, 18 Richie Vernon, 19 Roddy Grant, 20 Rob Chrystie, 21 Steve Jones, 22 Dougie Flockhart

Recommendation – Borders + 13 with Stan James

HEC Cup Weekend

No out and out picks for me on this HEC weekend. Personally I'm just having the double of Ulster and Wasps outright. Should do the job. Pays around even money.

I'm sure theres value around somewhere but I'm just to hungover after our heroic victory against GP Leaders Bristol last night.

Profile on Ulster Rugby....

Ulster - Land of the free, home of the brave.....

Like the pioneers from these shores that pushed back the frontiers in the New World, ulster hold a special place in irish rugby, the first team to conquer Europe, beating all comers and landing the ERC in a tumultuous occasion in front of 50,000 at Lansdowne in '99.

That the Province haven't challenged for European honours since that day is a source of great amusement for the Mexicans, and has become a millstone round the necks of successive coaches and players since. 'maybe next year' has become an important part of the ulster supporter's xmas greetings.

However, Ravenhill has become our Alamo, defended tooth and nail against all comers, with the great and the good being sent homewards with their tails between their legs, and the sound of the bearpit, fuelled by proper british Guinness, ringing in their ears. Inflatable sheep and f**king spides beware the wrath of the promenade hoards! indeed so great is the atmosphere in ulster's east Belfast heartland, the ulster team struggle to win away from home, especially in England, their crowds are too tame and ulster's players feel self conscious in these silent conditions.

At last however we've started to compete with our more glamourous neighbours from the pale, and their cousins from turnipstan, and the youth policy has seen some notable sons of ulster rise to the national ranks, led onwards by Neil 'Bestie' Best, as famous for his footwork as his fellow east Belfast namesake, arnie trimble and ireland's future world cup winning front row, bryan bear-young and the best brothers.

The development of young players has been remarkable, and the core of the pack, built around the central plank in the second row are young Ulstermen, with Stephen ferris being a star of the future. While leinster seem to focus on girly mincers with soft hands and dyed hair, ulster are turning out dirty nasty forwards who live on the wrong side of the ref for most of the game.

While the sweaties wring their hands and cry about it, ulster push on, and coupled with the ability to win on the road in wales, and a relative lack of international call ups, they've bagged the magners league in 2006 and look well set to regain their crown. Only the obvious leinster bias of referees can stop them now.

With talismanic figure Humphreys on the wane, his heir apparent, both with ulster and Ireland, paddy Wallace, this reporters least favourite player, has risen to the challenge and has started dishing out his own brand of entertainment. Gone are the comedy hairstyles and the showboating, replaced with rock solid defence and a knife through butter style attack, Ulster's immediate future rests on his shoulders.

Contributed by Mr B Fatfingers.

Summary Time

Dragons v Scarlets – Lose
Ospreys v Blues – Win
Conn v Scarlets – Win
Ospreys v Borders – Win
Leinster v Blues – Lose
Blues v Glasgow – Win
Connacht v Leinster – Win
Edinburgh v Glasgow – Lose
Glasgow v Border – Win
Connacht v Ulster – Win
Borders v Leinster – Lose
Ulster v Blues – Win
Ospreys v Glasgow – Win
Dragons v Edinburgh – Lose
Edinburgh v Borders – Win
Munster v Connacht – Win
Bristol v Dragons Lost
Castres v Treviso Win
Calvisano v Stade Francais Lost
Borders v Overmach Parma Win
Leicester v Munster Lost
Ulster v Toulouse Win
Bourgoin v Cardiff Win
Biarritz v Northampton Lost
London Irish v Scarlets Win
Agen v Edinburgh Win
Dragons v Bucharest Win
Calvisano v Ospreys Win
Glasgow v Narbonne Win
Conn/Edinburgh Double – Win
Glasgow/Ulster Double – Win
Leinster/Munster/Ospreys Treble – Lose
France v NZ – Win
Italy v Australia – Win
Wales v Pacific Islands – Win
France v New Zealand – Win
Scotland v Pacific Islands - Lost
Dragons v Munster - Win

Winning Strike Rate.....71.05%

First You Get The Money - Then You Get The Power...

Arbitrage Betting….

In a nutshell an “Arb” occurs when bookermakers make a mistake. Shown below is a real Arb that occurred on 1st January 2007.

Football Conference North: Lancaster v Barrow

Home Win 4.00 Skybet

Draw 3.40 Skybet

Away Win 2.40 Bet&Win

For every £100.00 you would have bet on this match you would have received a guaranteed 4.08% return. This one bet won’t make you rich of course bet if you take out the subscription then you could make yourself some holiday money or some stake money with no risk at all.

The last Arb I took was teeny weeny but free money is free money:

ODI NZ v Sri Lanka 30th December 2006

Home Win 2.75 Victor Chandler

Away Win 1.62 Ladbrokes

I made around £40.00 on this bet. Seriously, it’s free and it’s fun. I also get a kick out of taking free money off the bookies but heck that’s just me! Folks, this isn’t a con trick or anything subversive, click on the link and have a butchers for yourself. Good luck.

http://www.ucantlose.co.uk/html/members.html?a_aid=d6d639e3

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I play a lot of the Jackpot Sit and Goes – If you win four $2.00 Tournaments on the trot you win the jackpot of $2000.00

You really can’t say fairer than that. For the $50.00 please Email me on: gwentdave@hotmail.com

If you want to get started straight away then click on http://banner.cdpoker.com/cgi-bin/SetupPoker.exe?member=DACSTER

Larham Out of Rugby World Cup

Chris Larham is out of the Australian Rugby World Cup Squad – and with it any chance of them doing well. This bodes very well for Wales as they now may be able to overcome the Aussies at home in the Millenium Stadium next year to top the group, more importantly avoiding NZ in the Quarter Finals.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,21026616-23217,00.h tml

You can currently get 50/1 (Betfair) on Wales winning the World Cup…I really don’t think they will but that is certainly big enough odds to lay them off once they hit the Quarter Finals.
Just for the record, I’m going to take £20.00 worth and have some fun with it come September 07.

Dragons 19 - 12 Munster.

What a game. Gypsies, there were coming straight for me. I knew a woman once, took her to see India. At the Oval. I was very, very, very drunk.

Newsflash:

Leamy & Murphy Out of Munster Side 5 January 2007, 2:24 pm
By Pat Geraghty

A bout of illness has forced Barry Murphy and Denis Leamy to withdraw from the Munster side for the game this evening against Newport-Gwent Dragons at Rodney Parade (7.10). Trevor Halstead comes up from the bench to his usual number 12 slot with Lifeimi Mafi moving to outside centre while Chris Wyatt is drafted straight into the side. The Welshman will operate at blindside wing forward and John O'Sullivan at open. Mossy Lawlor comes onto the replacement bench.MUNSTER: C Cullen; A Horgan, L Mafi, T Halstead, I Dowling; J Manning, T Ó'Leary; M Horan, A Kyraicou, T Buckley; D Ryan, M O'Driscoll; C Wyatt, J O'Sullivan, A Foley. Replacements: F Pucciariello, E McGovern, P O'Connell, J Coughlan, B O'Meara, E Hickie, M Lawlor.

Sorry if you didn't realise but I was taking the piss on the post below. The Dragons team is as good as it gets for us at the moment but we still have a very decent smattering of internationals taking the field. An already resting/injured Munster Squad has further been depleted by the news above. The minus 4 on the Dragons, IMO, is the result of the bookies paying Munster too much respect and the Dragons not nearly enough.

Dragons v Munster Friday 6th January 07

Above: Cork Lesiure Centre

At around 7 O’clock this evening the people of Limerick and Cork will down Turnips and check the neighbourhood watch (everyone gets to wear it for 15 minutes each), the air will be full of the sound of tractors being parked up and the kids will be running home after disentangling themselves from abandoned combine harvesters eagerly awaiting the utter thrashing their heroes in dark pink will be giving to the poor upstarts from the Welsh Rivera, Newport.

The Dark Pinks are sending across what can only be described as a first rate squad, the team are so confident they are taking a raffle on who will score the fifth try, their only worry is if the big metal whirligig at Cork Airport can actually stay in the air for a whole hour.

Newport Gwent Dragons on the other hand are putting out a team of Academy players coupled with a few seasoned professionals; Colin Charvis (58) and Ian Gough (42) and their only job will be to try and stop the academy kids from throwing their scrum caps into the crowd and hoying themselves into the Mighty River Usk. The good news for the Dragons is that “Billy Smart” aka “Krusty” aka “The Circus” Mike Hercus is still so fecking shocking that he’s still on the bench despite some 15 year old children making their debuts for the Dragons tonight.

Recommendation: Dragons –4 at Skybet.

Blues v Ospreys

I like the look of the Sprays tonight at Evens. Sprays are a better outfit and play a wee bit better away from the souless Liberty Stadium. I am far too hungover to do any kind of write up.