I often find myself saying “where does the time go?” and as a general rule every year seems to fly past quicker and quicker. But for some reason the four years between Rugby World Cups seems like an eternity and I cannot wait for the action to get going on Friday with Japan playing Russia.

New Zealand are favourites to win their third successive title at 15/10 and there has been support for South Africa now 4/1 having been 10/1 a year ago. England have a really tough schedule and they are 9/2 third favourites and you can get 10/1 or better about any other teams that you fancy.

There are plenty of long term betting markets to capture your interest and my early punts revolve around two theories I have had of this World Cup for some time. The first is that the balance of power has swung to the North and I am backing England at 9/2 and also an Ireland v England final at 16/1.

The second theory I drone on about in my YouTube Shows is that I think this will be a low scoring World Cup. Initially my reasons for this was just the fact that I think the minnows would have improved and while they will struggle to score tries against bigger teams they will be able to hold the ball and eat up time. I also think that the gap between the top teams is so small that the matches are going to be very tight.

The theory received another boost with reports of lots of rain early in the Tournament and of course the humidity that hits Japan at this time of the year.

My biggest play in this Rugby World Cup is under 2615.5 points, a line which has already moved down by 80 points since I struck the bet earlier in the week. I have also gone under 315.5 tries so while most fans are hoping for open running rugby I will be cheering every reset scrum.

What a Tournament this will be and we will be previewing every match on Goodforthegame and there are also plenty of YouTube Shows planned.

Finally it is not too late to join the World Sports Betting Super Bru Pool and if you are up to it join my R500 buy-in pool, “Putyourmoneywhereyourmouthis”

Twitter: @BrentGraham

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 19 September 2019.

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