This week I have done a lot of research into two different fixtures.

St Helens v London Broncos.

I am expecting St Helens to be more or less unchanged from the weekend and have been following them closely on TV and the Radio in recent games.

St Helens: Lomax, Makinson, Turner, Meli, Swift, Wilkin, Hohaia, Puletua, Howarth, Laffranchi, Jones, Manu, McCarthy-Scarsbrook.
Interchange: Wellens, Walmsley, Richards, Walker

They built a good lead early on against Catalans with O'Brien involved but went a long time without scoring after he went off and I feel the second half flattered them - Catalans threw the ball into touch at least three times and had Maria sinbinned twice, so they had 12 in the line for about twenty minutes.

Saints were very brave and resilient but they have had two very hard games against tough forwards and I doubt they can back up with the same intensity yet again.

If you look over the season their highest points total is 52 whilst they have conceded double figures in 20 out of 22 games.

London by comparison have been scoring 2 or 3 tries in most games and have not lost away all season by 40 points, reserving their worst form for the soulless Stoop and borrowed grounds.

The side I expect to see tomorrow looks pretty strong in the forwards and not bad in the backs.

London Broncos: Macani or Hurst, Colbon , Sarginson, Howell, Melling, Woodburn-Hall or Bishay, Soward, Cook, Lee, Bryant, Kaufusi, Rodney, McMeeken.
Interchange: Dollapi, Fisher, Krasniqi, Wicks

So my first tip is to take London at the +34 if you are doing a single or if you are following my line of thinking take the +40 at 1/2 on with Ladbrokes. (Handicap Betting 4)

I think our odds are so far out because we had less than 25% ball possession and retention v Wigan and people think we may fold. Actually we fold against Wigan and Warrington but not often the rest of the time.

My second tip is Salford City Reds v Leeds Rhinos again with Handicap betting 4 (-12 over the game)

Salford have four Props but only Jewitt is decent. The other three of Emmitt, A Walne and Neal wouldn't get a run out at the Broncos. More importantly they don't have a senior Hooker in the squad. So the front row is a shocking one and the backs look to be light in quality also.

Salford: Gaskell, D. Williams, Gibson, McGoldrick, Evalds, Sneyd, Fages, Jewitt, Owen, Emmitt, Davies, Dixon, Wild.
Interchange: A. Walne , J.Walne, Neal, Hope

They can sometimes run teams closer than you'd think at their home ground, but if you can put a couple of tries on them it shouldn't be difficult to hammer them as a lot of teams have done this year.

Leeds Rhinos: Hardaker; Jones-Bishop, Watkins, Keinhorst, Hall; Sutcliffe, Burrow; Leuluai, McShane, Peacock, Clarkson, Ablett, Sinfield
Interchange: Foster, Moore, Bailey, Kirke

This Leeds team is not the best I have ever seen, but it should be able to win comfortably against Salford.

I have taken Leeds -12 at 2/5.

My thoughts are to roll the two together as a double and it pays about a tickle over Evens - about 1:1/1.

I have lumped on this double - I expect London to comfortably be within 40 points (I reckon about Saints 32-London 12 will be more like it) and for Leeds to be able to beat Salford by +20 (I think this one will be something like Salford 16-Leeds 44) so we have a bit of margin for error.

Good luck
Rammo

Bit tense at one point, but all's well that ends well. Well done.

Got any thoughts on the Hull derby

Yesterday I had a treble and a quadruple with the last match requiring Warrington to win by 13 or more... incredibly they kicked just 1 from 6 and finished on +12, so a little frustrating, I can tell you.

Anyhow, let us continue with our selections... we are again looking for a double.

The reason is that we look to roll together two 'odds on' or highly probable selections which have each around a 66%-75% chance together, versus making a straight 50/50 call on a coin toss.

The two selections are:

Hull KR v Hull FC - Total match points Under +51.5 @ 2/5
Bradford v Catalan Dragons - Total match points Under +57.5 @ 4/9
The double pays pretty much exactly evens.

Regarding the Hull KR match...

The Bookies cannot split these two teams although if I were to go for an outright winner it would be Hull KR. This is not just because of home advantage but the fact that won 23-10 at the KC and were the better team for 70 minutes at the Etihad against Hull FC only to lose in a highly dubious way.

I have also not been impressed with Hull FC on the road at all. Thus if I were to be forced to choose on this one I would take Hull KR -4 at 11/8 which I think is great value although my money is elsewhere.

I am much happier with the match total.

The two games this season have yielded 33 points and 38 points and the game at Craven Park shows a regularly consistent pattern of each team scoring less than four converted tries.

Hull KR 11 - Hull 10 (200icon_cool.gif
Hull KR 24 - Hull 18 (2009)
Hull KR 14 - Hull 18 (2010)
Hull KR 17 - Hull 10 (2011)
Hull KR 18 - Hull 32 (2012)

Thus you can take under about 45 at close to evens, with the Bookies overround coming into play as always or under 51.5. We'd be looking at around a 9 try game to be out of the money on this one but I reckon it will be 6-7 tries so I am happy to go on this one.

As for the Bradford game, you'd have to go back to early April to see when Bradford last scored 30 in a Super League game - against the Broncos in fact - whilst Catalans have been scoring at a very low rate, with 16 or less in 4 of their last 5 matches even with Salford involved.

I just don't see both these teams scoring 10 tries and kicking 9 from 10 between them and if it is a close game then kickable penalties will cannibalise potential try opportunities of course.

Catalans win this fixture pretty much every time and welcome back their best two Props including Casty plus Elima and B Webb so they should win again in my view with their burly pack and leadership figures.

I'm expecting a tight game, something like Bradford 20-Catalans 26 at most.

We can also afford more of a steamrollering from one team - the only game we don't want is a try trading game.

Good luck to all
Rammo

Here is one more selection... I have decided to go on some outright winners covering a small start.

If we can land the Bradford game on its own, that will mean we break even; 2 from 3 will make us a nice sum. I'll be really shocked if our team win but do not cover these slender margins and willing to take the much better odds from the mediocre 5/6 up to double that for the sake of four points or so.

Staking around £20-£25 per game...

Hull KR v Hull FC -4.0 @ 6/4
Widnes Vikings v Castleford Tigers -2.0 @ 11/8
Bradford v Catalan Dragons -4.0 @ 2/1

£11.23 on the treble pays £200.03 if we can win. I have covered this but 17/1 may make some shy away

I have already extensively covered the other two games, but this extra selection of Castleford is based on their great scoring rate against superb teams in recent weeks with four tries in eight minutes against Warrington and a 32 point run in 45 minutes away at Huddersfield - they are full of points.

Widnes are conceding over 30 points a lot of weeks too and even London had them on the run until Colborn dropped the ball over the line with 20 minutes to go, which would have taken London to 18-22 but with momentum. Widnes collapsed last week at Hull and I don't see them going from conceding over a point a minute to doing well in a week.

I think this will be a very high scoring game but Cas will win, hence the picks.

Correct:
Bradford 22 - Catalans 23 - the unders
Widnes 38 - Castleford 42 (Cas up)

Near miss - got the result but not the handicap so another loss by less than a try:
Catalans to beat Bradford - did not quite cover the handicap, so that's a tad disappointing

Wrong:
Hull KR 8 - Hull FC 6 at halftime... and then 44 points scored in the second half.

I had a Hull FC & Catalans double today. I was due a close game falling the right way.

Nice one Richie, good to see you get in there mate.

Big comeback from Catalans - they kept Bradford down to one try in the last hour.

I was shocked with what happened at Hull KR - it was 8-6 to Hull KR and then KR collapsed - Hull are looking to be a stronger second half team, we will note that for future games

Funny to think Channing got me the winning margin

I'm on a football treble today

Norwich +0.5 v Everton
Liverpool v Stoke City +1.5
Nottingham Forest v Bolton Wanderers +0.5

We need Norwich to not lose at home, Bolton to not lose away and Stoke to avoid a two goal defeat

Pays about 5/1 on the exchanges

Cheers
Rammo