It doesn’t happen often but every now and again a weekend comes along where everything goes your way.

Things started Friday morning where I had taken the Highlanders to win by 11 points or more against the Waratahs earlier that week.  It was clear from the kickoff that the Waratahs had run their race and the Highlanders stormed to a massive half-time lead with the bet arriving easily.

In the second match I had been amazed that the bookmakers made the Rebels slight favourites over the Chiefs and I took the Chiefs to win the game.  As expected the money came for the Chiefs and they started narrow favourites and once again the result was never in doubt as they won by over 50 points.

If those first two bets had arrived easily the third one was to require a massive stroke of good fortune.  I had reasoned that the Jaguares would be looking to put the Sunwolves to bed early and backed them to lead by 11 points or more at the break.  They conceded a couple of soft tries in the first half and with 90 seconds left only led by 4 points. They managed to get their hands on the ball though and the Sunwolves, through a deliberate knock down, conceded a penalty try and the Jaguares led by 11 at the break for the narrowest of wins.

I took my son and 2 friends to Loftus to watch the Bulls v Lions. I had taken the Bulls at 8/10 to win when the betting opened and also had an 11/1 accumulator finishing on them to win by at least 5 points.  At the ground I also backed the Bulls to score 31 points or more.  It was an excellent game to watch with entertaining rugby from both sides and credit to Bulls rugby for making the tickets only R50 to get in.  After some nervous moments in the second-half, the Bulls drew clear to win easily and I collected on all of my bets and was enjoying my most profitable weekend in recent memory. 

I lay fairly low on Sunday, but decided to have a couple of bets in the cycling. My stakes when I bet on cycling are very much smaller than on rugby, but I was delighted when my 80/1 shot got in the break and ended up winning the stage to cap a very profitable weekend.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 20th June 2019.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a  free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register