BETTING COLUMN BY SEAMUS O’CONCHUR
There are arguably two games worthy of being televised this weekend, With Derry City hosting Shamrock Rovers and St Pat’s welcoming runaway leaders Sligo Rovers. While the league table is to a certain extent looking a lot like people would have expected pre-season, it may be that with fixtures piling up for some teams, we may start to see more draws and less teams pulling away at the top or being left adrift at the bottom so early.
Tommy Dunne is protesting around the amount of travelling his team are doing but he would rather be in the Setanta Cup than not in it, and he has proved capable of maintaining his squad’s conditioning, winning 2 games and taking 9 points from the first 7 games.
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Tonight Cork face a Shelbourne team who sit at the bottom of the table, level with UCD on one solitary point. These are the only 2 teams Bohs have beaten this season and having seen both sides, there probably isn’t a huge gap between them and ourselves. With that in mind, and the fact that Cork played in Tallaght on Monday, it might be time to back Shels to get something from this trip. The one point Shels have this season came against Shamrock Rovers where they were able to dig in for a draw, so maybe they can look to repeat that tonight down by the Lee. The draw is
Back to matters at the top now, and just how serious a title tilt are Shamrock Rovers going to have this season? They lave left a lot to do, but a win for them tonight in Derry coupled with defeat for Sligo in Inchicore would cut the deficit to nine points – still something of a mountain to climb. For all their draws this season, Shamrock have the longest unbeaten run of any team in the league, but the prices look correct for their trek to Derry, where the home side is marginal favourite. This of course wouldn’t have been the case at the start of the season but people have had their views challenged by Rovers inability to kill games until last week’s win against Bray.
Although it would throw the title race wide open, and Sligo’s defeat in Drogheda proves they’re beatable, a home win in Inchicore is difficult to back. Pat’s have an inferior squad to Sligo and need every player in top form to be able to turn them over. Again nothing stands out at the prices. It will probably be a low-scoring game, and if there is a winner it could be by one goal perhaps in the final quarter of the game where quality players on either side could take advantage of a defensive slip.
The Drogheda v UCD game looks a fairly straightforward home win but UCD ran Cork close and Drogheda aren’t yet the sort of team we’d be comfortable tipping up at odds shorter than 1.5. They will have their appeal to some on the handicap markets, but this isn’t a sure thing either. UCD may keep this tighter than people think, for longer than people think.
Moving onto our own game, there are always reasons to take note of recent trends, and there are also reasons why we sometimes want to ignore recent trends. Our home games this season, in terms of total goals, have been 3,0,3,4. Dundalk’s last 8 away games have seen over 2.5 goals so perhaps this is the bet for tonight’s game. 2/1 the home win might see some interest but this goals bet is a better one. Losing Feely and McMillan to transfers, and Heary to injury means that we are not remotely the same team defensively as we were last season, and Dundalk have the tools to score at Dalymount. With Lyons back though, we should score as well.
Bray and Limerick complete the weekend’s fixtures on Sunday and there is nothing worth getting involved in here.
Recommended:
Cork City v Shelbourne draw, 1pt 4.24 (Pinnacle)
Bohs v Dundalk over 2.5 goals, 1pt 2.38 (Hills)
