There have been many times over the years when I have explained to my wife just how close I was to winning a bet only to be robbed in the dying seconds of the game.  She always responds “all that counts is the bottom line”. 

She is 100% correct but this weekend I certainly suffered some bad beats.  There was nothing close about my early losses on the Sharks and the Blues and I was well down heading into my best bet of the weekend which was the Stormers to beat the Brumbies by 8 points or more. I should have been alarmed when I saw some support coming for the Brumbies and the handicap moving down prior to kick-off.  The Stormers like many South African sides this season failed to put a second successive good performance together and they lost the match, never mind the handicap. 

I was well down for the weekend and decided to chase my losses with an in-running play on Saracens to score 30 points or more in the Champions Cup.  The English team (with a host of South Africans in it) duly delivered and the comeback had begun.  I then backed La Rochelle to score 27 points or more and with more than a quarter of the match still to play they reached 24 points.  They then frustratingly went into defensive mode, however with 2 minutes left it appeared I was going to land my bet as their fly half West lined up a penalty my 14 year old son could knock over in his sleep. I screamed out in anger as he missed an absolute sitter (not for the 1st time either) and I was back to where I was after the Stormers loss.

I then considered a wild bet on Clermont to score 33 points or more, but fortunately my account was fairly flat and so I just had a medium sized play.  After a slow start Clermont raised to 32 points, but as with La Rochelle they didn’t score a point in the final quarter and my bet had lost by the narrowest of margins.  I was down and out for the weekend and gave Sunday’s Champions Cup game between Leinster and Toulouse a skip and needless to say I decided not to bother my wife with the details of just how close I came to saving the weekend.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

 
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 25th of April 2019.

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