Ireland clash with Russia in Rugby World Cup Pool A in Kobe on Thursday and the pre-match betting handicap points to a wide margin win for the Irish.
Ireland v Russia, Thursday 3rd October, Kobe, KO 12:15 (South African time)
Weather Forecast – Kobe Misaki Stadium (note, this stadium also has a retractable roof)
Referee: Jerome Garces
Assistant Referees: Mathieu Raynal, Brendon Pickerill
TMO: Ben Skeen
Pool A remains wide open at the half way stage with Russia the only side out of contention. Host nation Japan lead the way with 2 wins from 2 and a tally of 9 log points. Ireland are second with 6 points and Scotland and Samoa both have 5.
Ireland
Pre-tournament Ireland were firm favourites to top this pool and they lived up to that billing in beating Scotland 27-3 in their opening match, securing a bonus point in the process. However next time out they were on the wrong end of a shock result, losing 19-12 to Japan, a result which has blown the pool wide open..
There was little sign of what was to come in the early stages of the Japan game with Ireland, who were without Sexton at fly half, scoring 2 tries in the first 20 minutes to take a 12-3 lead. That deficit was cut to 12-9 by half time and Japan grew in belief as the match wore on with Ireland failing to add to their tally. The Irish had started as 20 point favourites for that game and they now have no margin for error.
Ireland had started with a convincing win over the Scots, making short work of covering an 8 point betting handicap. After this their final pool match comes against Samoa who were well beaten by Scotland in their most recent outing.
The odds for Ireland to win this tournament have drifted to 14/1. As far as topping Pool A is concerned they can now be backed at 5/6 with Japan second favourites at around 13/10.
Russia
Russia have lost both their matches so far and have yet to earn a log point. They were given a 40 point start against Japan first time out and showed plenty of spirit, going into the break just 12-7 in arrears before eventually losing 30-10.
Last time out Russia were given a 30 point start by the bookmakers for their clash with Samoa. They led 6-5 at half time as Samoa picked up a couple of yellow cards but the Russians ran out of steam in the second period and eventually lost 34-9.
Russia's only previous apperance in the RWC finals came in New Zealand in 2011 when they lost all 4 of their matches, scoring 57 points in total and conceding 196 and after this they will finish their campaign against Scotland.
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Line Ups
Ireland: 15 Rob Kearney, 14 Andrew Conway, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 Keith Earls, 10 Jonathan Sexton (c), 9 Luke McGrath, 8 Jordi Murphy, 7 Peter O’Mahony, 6 Rhys Ruddock, 5 Jean Kleyn, 4 Tadhg Beirne, 3 John Ryan, 2 Niall Scannell, 1 Dave Kilcoyne
Replacements: 16 Sean Cronin, 17 Andrew Porter, 18 Tadhg Furlong, 19 Iain Henderson, 20 CJ Stander, 21 Joey Carbery, 22 Jack Carty, 23 Jordan Larmour
Russia: 15 Vasily Artemyev (c), 14 German Davydov, 13 Igor Galinovskiy, 12 Kirill Golosnitskiy, 11 Denis Simplikevich, 10 Ramil Gaisin, 9 Dmitry Perov, 8 Victor Gresev, 7 Tagir Gadzhiev, 6 Anton Sychev, 5 Bogdan Fedotko, 4 Andrey Garbuzov, 3 Kirill Gotovtsev, 2 Evgeny Matveev, 1 Andrei Polivalov
Replacements: 16 Stanislav Selskii, 17 Valery Morozov, 18 Vladimir Podrezov, 19 Andrey Ostrikov, 20 Evgeny Elgin, 21 Sergey Ianiushkin, 22 Roman Khodin, 23 Vladimir Ostroushko
Head to Head
The teams have met just twice before with Ireland winning on both occasions.
In RWC 2011 Ireland won a pool stage match in Rotorua 62-12 (half time 36-0)
In 2002 in Krasnoyarsk Ireland won a one off test match 35-3
Betting - Handicap
Ireland -54.5 points at 9/10
Russia +54.5 points at 9/10
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Quotes are an average of what was on offer from a selection of bookmakers at the time of writing and are subject to change.
Betting Angle
The Irish were huge favourites to win the pool but if Japan beat Scotland they will finish 2nd and will face a quarter-final against the All Blacks. They still have a good chance of topping the log though and will probably try and improve their points difference in this game against a Russian side that has performed above what I had expected (at least in the opener against Japan) but could well be ripe for the taking.
I think Ireland will cruise this one and while my main bet will be placed in the forum (likely an unders play on Russian points when available) I am happy to have an interest in the -52.5.
Bet: 3 units Ireland -52.5 at 9/10 at GGGaming.bet
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