The Rugby World Cup quarter-finals are upon us, and Tony Calvin has a pair of selections in the half-time/full-time markets along with game-by-game analysis.
Recommended bets
2pts England-Australia HT-FT at 14/1
2pts France-Wales HT-FT at 6/1
I found it hard to get a betting handle on the pool stages, with pretty much all the teams bar New Zealand and Japan proving something of a Jekyll and Hyde in the performance stakes – and the Italians reckoned the All Blacks raised a heckle and hid when their closing game had to be cancelled – so hopefully the form book comes to together in this weekend’s quarter-finals.
The problem is you can read that tome two ways when it comes to each of the four matches, especially on the handicap front. It’s a very tricky weekend on that score.
But let’s take each game in chronological order, and dig out a bet or two.
England v Australia (Saturday, 0815 BST)
England have not yet hit the heights they were climbing to in their pre-tournament games, but they looked to be building nicely enough in their defeats of Tonga and the USA before taking on Argentina.
The winning scoreline of 39-10 against the Pumas looks impressive on paper, but of course that masks the fact that they played against 14 men for 63 minutes there and two late tries put a gloss on things.
I was disappointed by them.
England looked disjointed – perhaps as a result of Owen Farrell taking the red-card hit when it comes to the back-line play, as he didn’t look himself afterwards, missing four kicks in a row - and were nowhere near their clinical best, while their abandoned match against France robbed them of their first true test in the tournament.
That could yet prove their undoing in a tight match, especially after their long break, but of course they have the set-piece – the offloading band of Mako Vunipola, brother Billy (is he fit and can he last the 80 minutes?) and Kyle Sinckler are back together in the loose, too, with Courtney Lawes providing extra biff (and he needs to watch himself on the tackle front) - and the three-quarters to see off Australia once again if they pull it altogether.
England have won their last six games between the sides since the Wallabies trounced them 33-13 in the pool stages of the last World Cup, and have done so by winning margins of 11-16-4-16-24-19, the most recent of which was in November 2018 at Twickenham.
Mind you, I don’t think I have ever seen a more misleading score line than England’s 30-6 win in the rain in London a year earlier. Eddie Jones’s men couldn’t have argued if coming away with a draw on another day, as the Aussies were on the wrong end of a number of crucial calls.
Those winning margins suggest England should possibly be favoured to cover the general eight- and nine-point handicap line here, even on neutral soil, but which Australia will turn up, the one that beat a 14-man New Zealand 47-26 in Perth in the summer, or the one that lost 36-0 to a full All Blacks complement in Auckland a week later?
That underlines the inconsistency we are dealing with here, as does the fact that Australia were flattered to beat Fiji 39-21 (it was another match altogether if Reece Hodge gets sent off in the first-half) and really should have pulled it out of the fire against Wales after a woeful opening 40 minutes that saw them back in the dressing room 15 points down.
I find it hard to rate Michael Cheika as a world-class coach and I think he was being serious when he said before the unimpressive 27-8 defeat of Georgia that his side don’t have a kicking game – but the Perth game showed he has a XV that can handle any side when playing an open, running game.
It’s a difficult one to call on the handicap lines of 8 and 9, especially in the light of England’s lack of an 80-minute test so far, and some unexpected team selections.
Jones has made a lot of the importance of the schoolboy-into-international 10-12 axis of George Ford and Owen Farrell to England’s game plan, but he has surprisingly left Ford on the bench and gambled with the under-cooked Henry Slade, with Manu Tuilagi coming inside to counter the threat of Australia’s main go-forward man, Samu Kerevi, head on.
Not literally one hopes.
And, of course, the Aussie’s have taken a gamble at 13 themselves by picking the young, and injury -prone, Jordan Petaia.
I am not ruling out a surprise win at all for the 11/4 underdogs, especially as I like Cheika’s bench a fair bit more then Jones’s, with dynamism and plenty of experience to be injected late on and prop Taniela Tupou a real handful in open play.
If the Aussies start slowly yet again – as they have done in all of their four matches in the tournament, trailing Fiji and Wales at the break, and only leading Georgia 10-3 - then they could just have the substitutes to rattle England at the business end.
Price is everything, so I am going to recommend a England-Australia HT-FT bet at 14/1 (Betfred), with the general 11/1 also more than acceptable. It looks too big to me.
New Zealand v Ireland (Saturday, 1115 BST)
The recent head-to-head meetings between these sides suggest Ireland are a knocking bet on the +12 handicap line, but just how far have they regressed in the last 11 months?
Their defeats of Scotland (27-3) and Samoa (47-5), with Johnny Sexton in the chair, suggests not a great deal at all.
All their line-intensity and pressure rugby was back against the Scots, while they were professional and ruthless in equal measure against Samoa after the influential Bundee Aki was sent off in the first-half.
And perhaps their 19-12 defeat at the hands of Japan, with Sexton rested, was not as bad, or embarrassing, as it looked at the time. I am sure Scotland would agree.
Furthermore, their self-belief – which took a battering at the hands of England in their warm-up game at Twickenham - will obviously be reignited when they are reminded that they have beaten New Zealand in two of their last three games, and it would have been three of the last four were it not for the fact that the All Blacks marched them down the field and scored seven points in a last-play 24-22 win in Dublin in 2013, which would have been a draw had Nigel Owens not allowed Aaron Cruden to re-take the final conversion.
Owens takes charge again here, and that is something that not all Irish supporters have welcomed coming into this game, not least for the fact that he is thought in some quarters to have a rather laissez-faire attitude to the break-down and the All Blacks need no second invitation there.
The Welshman has had a moderate World Cup, to my eye, missing a few obvious calls throughout the tournament, but I’m sure that the whole refereeing team will be aware of any management concerns, and it is clear that Joe Schmidt has plenty of Group 1 form in successfully dissecting the New Zealand game plan.
For all that the All Blacks have looked very good in their three matches to date – though a 10-point defeat of South Africa owed much to two brilliant passages of play, and their handicap backers probably still can’t believe they didn’t cover in the Canada match after a point-less last quarter – Schmidt does have plenty to work on from some a series of below-par efforts from the opposition in the Rugby Championship.
But that game against the Springboks showed that the Kiwis have the explosive power to put any side, and game, to bed in a matter of minutes, and of course that 36-0 defeat of Australia in the summer illustrated that they can turn it on like no other side when they click.
I think Aki is a big ball-carrying miss for the Irish in midfield – for all Robbie Henshaw is no lightweight when it comes to punch in the centre - while I don’t expect Schmidt to get any change out of an impressive All Black set-piece, with their purring back-line ready to scratch anyone’s eyes out if getting the edge on up front, and especially in the back-row.
I think that is on the cards, so I was sorely tempted to rip up that head-to-head form book and go with New Zealand -11 at 4/5, but it’s probably one to sit out - especially as there is yet again plenty of rain forecast in Tokyo.
Wales v France (Sunday, 0815 BST)
It is always instructive to look back at recent head-to-head records and Wales have dominated this fixture since losing 9-8 to France in the 2011 World Cup - a game best remembered for Sam Warburton’s red card.
They have only lost once in their last nine meetings and it could have easily been a clean sweep, as the 20-18 loss in France in 2017 could have gone either way, with the home side scoring a converted try 10 minutes into injury time to take the spoils.
Mind you, France only lost 14-13 at the Millennium a year later and they will still be wondering how they threw away a 16-0 half-time lead in Paris in February.
So it isn’t perhaps as obvious as it seems when it comes to who has the recent upper hand.
We do know that this Wales side is superbly coached, and Warren Gatland wouldn’t have been remotely bothered by three tournament warm-up losses when on a fact-finding mission with his squad.
I know Wales are unbeaten in Japan but he probably would have been a touch concerned by some unconvincing performances, not least that second-half against Australia, but one thing his side does not lack for is a winning habit, and whistle-to-whistle fitness.
They pride themselves on their 80-minute stamina, and that durability came to the fore when Australia pulled it back to 26-25, and again in the closing 10 minutes or so against both Fiji and Uruguay.
Contrast that to France, who often tear off in front, and struggle to hold on to the finishing post.
That was the case against Argentina and Tonga, where they only edged home by two points on both occasions after taking big leads in the first-half, and only a late three-try surge in the final 14 minutes spared their blushes against a very limited USA side after turning around 12-6 up at the break.
I can see a similar pattern developing here so, while I would just about favour Wales -6 on the handicap, I do like the look of the France-Wales HT-FT bet at the general 6/1.
Whether it be a lack of concentration, complacency, indiscipline or simple hard-fitness, France continue to be a fragile side, for all they boast some sublime attackers in their back-line.
You only have to go back to Murrayfield in August to see them letting slip an early 14-3 lead, too. The sides aren’t known at the time of writing, but Wales are taken to grind down France yet again.
South Africa v Japan (Sunday, 1115 BST)
These two sides have been the only notable, positive movers in a static outright World Cup market, with South Africa ranging from 3/1 to 7/2 after the results in the pool games were kind to them, and Japan on offer at between 25/1 and 50/1, depending where you shop.
Mind you, anyone who witnessed Japan beat Ireland and Scotland by seven points could beg to differ that the Boks have drawn the long straw here and they could be in for a very uncomfortable match indeed, especially with everyone around the world bar South Africans (and me) rooting for the host nation. The ground will be a cauldron, as they say.
Japan really were electric for the opening 50 minutes against Scotland, when stretching out to a 28-7 lead after going 7-0 down early, and fully deserved the win, for all Scotland could easily have pulled them back in the final quarter.
The sheer dynamism and panache of the Japan side contrasts sharply to that of South Africa’s usual kicking game and safety-first, territory approach, and that is what makes this match-up so fascinating.
The Japanese could really unsettle the favourites with their high-tempo style – they will be looking to get at full-back Willie Le Roux, a real weak link in defence, at every opportunity - but the Springboks have exactly the heavy-duty personnel and game plan to strangle them at source, slow it down, dominate them physically and starve them of possession.
We also have a very recent form-line to go on here, and that is South Africa’s 41-7 warm-up defeat of Japan in Kumagaya little over a month ago. It was actually the Boks’ backs that did the damage there, with the wingers scoring five of the six tries, as they went in 22-0 up at half-time.
So they are no one-trick ponies, as our man Cheslin Kolbe has shown on the rare occasions he has got the ball in this tournament. They have a 15-man game should they choose, as New Zealand know only too well.
I didn’t watch the match last month, but by all accounts Japan had a lot of pressure and try-scoring chances before finally touching down in the 60th minute. It was probably not a 34-point game, for all South Africa’s noted defence have to be given due credit for that rearguard excellence.
The 14- and 15-point handicap lines on Sunday are around half of what it was for that warm-up match, and the Boks to cover would be my preference.
It isn’t a betting or tipping preference though, as the home side really have been mustard, and South Africa have frankly disappointed me in this tournament in as far as they have been in an unhurried cruise-control since that opening loss to New Zealand.
Flicking the switch to full-on mode isn’t as easy as some may suggest.
However, I can’t see them losing, as odds of around 1/6 indicate, and this is one of those sporting occasions where you can just soak in the atmosphere on your High Definition TV and watch punt-free.
While you do, be sure to pray that the Springboks silence the whole of Japan for the sake of my book on the outright and my kitchen, otherwise the Sunday lunch could be decorating a few of the walls.
Posted at 1250 BST on 17/10/19.