Heineken Cup Betting: Leinster strangely under-rated
“No flowery language, no quote from some famous writer, simple betting advice to lump on the Irishmen at Betfair’s extremely tempting handicap of 5.5 points.”
It’s the semi-finals of the Heineken Cup and Leinster are favourites in the outright market. The best betting option is however to side with them to overcome the handicap at home to Toulouse. Geoffrey Riddle explains the thinking…
Leinster should be backed to get their revenge for last season’s defeat in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup against Toulouse on Saturday at the Aviva Stadium.
Betting on the Heineken Cup is a lot more of a pleasurable experience than the weekly grind of the Premiership. The gaps in match weekends allow one the time to make a more considered opinion before placing a wager. What’s more, it gives one more opportunity to check all the calculations. I simply cannot understand why Leinster have been so underrated – I make them 7-10 point favourites, which in match betting terms makes the home side at least [1.3].
Leinster have won 13 of the 15 matches they have contested since swatting Clermont aside 24-8 in January at the Aviva Stadium. Both the matches they’ve have lost since then were away from home and in Dublin this season they have been impossible to beat.
Earlier in the season Joe Schmidt’s side dispatched Racing Metro 38-22, and considering they are second in the Top 14, and Clermont are third, they can go into battle against the four-times European Cup winners with supreme confidence.
A thorough analysis of matches similar to Saturday’s encounter yields a similar story. There have been 18 knockout encounters between Irish and French sides in the history of European competition, with French teams winning just two; Beziers beat Connacht in the European Challenge Cup in 2003, while Leinster fell to Perpignan in the same year. Now historical data such as that may not mean a lot to some punters – different teams are capable of different results – but what this sample does indicate however is that the handicap in Dublin looks all wrong.
The average winning margin in that sample was 12 points. Toulouse have lost nine matches this season, two by double figure margins, but they were away against Toulon and Racing Metro, who by several ratings systems are inferior to the Irish province.
I can only assume that Toulouse’s remarkable Heineken Cup pedigree – this is their tenth semi-final after all – and the fact that they lead the head-to-heads against Leinster is the major driving force behind such a favourable handicap differential. Toulouse hardly come in to this fixture in the right frame of mind – Freddie Michalak announced on Wednesday he was leaving the club at the end of the season – and my only conclusion is that Leinster are a serious investment.
The fewest points they have scored in a Heineken Cup match this campaign was the 22 they got to draw with Leicester at Welford Road – no mean feat.
Perpignan average just over 18 points on the road to the top six clubs in the French league this season. Last week’s dismal showing against Toulon, where they lost 43-12, is certainly a worry. As is the fact that the club gave a chunk of their ticket allocation back to the ERC because after the trip to Barcelona, their fans clearly did not fancy the delights of Milton Keynes.
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