I cannot recall watching less Super Rugby in an opening weekend than the one that has just past. The reason is that my son was involved in a Water Polo Tournament and rather than spending my day on the sofa shouting at the TV, I was at the side of the pool shouting at the referee. 

The one bet I really fancied this weekend was the Bulls to beat the Stormers by more than 3 points.  The final Water Polo game ended at 3.30 pm and we began to make our way home, the plan being that I would be perched in front of the TV come the 5:15 pm kick-off with my bet placed. 

My son’s teacher had cycled to the venue and with dark clouds looming, my wife took pity on him and offered to put his bike in my bakkie and to lift him at least part of the way home.  I was happy to oblige but all the time my eye was on the clock not wanting to miss the opportunity to get my bet down.  He stayed a lot further away than I thought and being on a farm it turned out to be in the middle of nowhere. 

Not being the most observant of chaps I looked down at my dashboard to see the reserve light was on and I had 14 kilometers worth of petrol left.  We had no idea where the next service station was and my son and wife, who were sitting in the back with my son’s friend, began to panic.  Strangely enough my son’s friend seemed quite relaxed and apparently had more faith in me than my family did. 

Having dropped our passenger off we eventually made it to a garage, but I was distraught to see it was 5.30 pm.  It was at this point that fate intervened and to my surprise the game had not kicked off and had been delayed by 20 minutes.  It turned out that the Stormers team had been caught up behind an accident on the N1. 

The long and the short of it is I got my bet down and the Bulls went on to absolutely trounce the Stormers.  My car had a full tank and my World Sports Betting account was topped up and this was clearly one bet that was meant to be.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

 
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 21st of February 2019.

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