I was in Brits this past Saturday watching my son play a 7’s Tournament for his school and for that reason I never got as financially involved as I usually would have.

The betting weekend had effectively started on Friday where I followed the advice of my YouTube guest, Hanrick Swart and went under on points in the Japan v South Africa game. The quote was 65.5 and the result was never in doubt as we got the weekend off to a flyer.

That night I backed England over 3.5 tries in running against Italy and while the bet looked in trouble early it arrived in the end. When things are going well I like to press and I took New Zealand to lead by 24 points or more at the break against Tonga. We had an early start for the 7’s on Saturday so it was no problem to get up at 04h30 to watch the game. The All Blacks delivered with some room to spare.

I closed up shop hoping that I might be back in Johannesburg in time for the Currie Cup Final at 17h00. As things happened the boys went quite deep in the Tournament and we only begun the trek back after kick off.

I already had an interest thanks to the 14/1 win bet on the Cheetahs at the start of the season, but I also fancied them strongly on the night and backed them to win by 7 points or more. To my horror there was no commentary on Radio 2000 and I had to rely on my wife giving me score updates as we drove. I asked her every 5 minutes of the second half and got the response 31-7 to the Free State and I mentally banked the money.

My son then switched on the phone and started watching the last few minutes of the game and my hands clenched tight to the steering wheel as he described 3 late Lions tries which fell short of ruining my outright bet, but saw my handicap play consigned to the scrap heap.

How the Cheetahs blew a 24 point lead to only win by 3 I have no idea, but it certainly ruined what would have been a perfect weekend and it just goes to show you that in sports betting you can take nothing for granted.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 12 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