Like many Rugby fans I was very excited for the local competition to get going this past weekend.

On Friday night I fancied the Sharks against the Lions in Durban and was initially disappointed when my wife organized a trip to the extended family for an early dinner. The intention was to get home before the Sharks game, but we ended up staying longer than planned and this resulted in me not betting on the Sharks to score 25 points or more. The Sharks won a dour low scoring encounter and while I did take a small hit on the handicap of Sharks (-6.5), it felt like I had dodged a bullet.

On to the Cheetahs v Pumas game and looking at that Cheetahs team sheet I couldn’t see anything but a comfortable home victory and I backed the Cheetahs to score 41 points or more in the match. It was my biggest bet of the weekend and it is not often that you can celebrate collecting an 80 minute bet before half-time, but that is exactly what happened as the Cheetahs ran riot.

It was then on to the Bulls v Griquas at Loftus with the Bulls overwhelming favourites and I thought they would put the Griquas to the sword. In the end they were lucky just to win the game and only a somewhat reckless bet at odds of 7/20 at half-time for the Bulls to win by 4 or more saved me from a big loss in the match.

I pulled about square on the Rugby, but perhaps the signs were there that my good fortune from previous weeks was turning and this COVID-19 found a way to get me indirectly. I had taken 9/1 about Mitchelton-Scott winning the Team Classification of the Giro d’Italia and also taken 33/1 that one of their riders Jack Haig would win the King of the Mountains competition.

Sadly 4 of the backroom staff tested positive for COVID on the back of their team leader Yates doing likewise last week and the entire team ended up pulling out of the Giro so all of my long term bets went down the sink.

I made good profits on the Tour de France, but my form has dipped and it might be time to take a break from Cycling and focus on the Rugby.

Twitter: @BrentGraham.

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 15 October 2020.

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