The World Cup final, big provincial deciders and All-Ireland qualifiers in football and hurling and a heritage handicap from York – all in this weekend’s JOE fancies.
Weekend Patent
It’s another big weekend of GAA action, with Cork and Waterford facing off in the Munster hurling final, a novel Leinster football decider between Meath and Louth and eight All-Ireland football qualifiers. For patent purposes, we’ll leave the provincial finals well enough alone and focus on one of the qualifiers, with WESTMEATH-DERRY the one to catch our eye.
The Lake County men have left their dismal National Football League form behind them in the Championship, overturning Wicklow before pushing in-form Louth close in the Leinster semi-final. All does not look to be well in the Derry camp, on the other hand. They bowed out of Ulster on the back of a dire performance against Armagh, who were themselves filleted by Monaghan, while star forward Paddy Bradley withdrew from the panel before last month’s win over Carlow. With home advantage and the knowledge that they’ll have been preparing for the Championship with the qualifiers in mind, Westmeath can edge it. They’re 9/4 to win but there’s better value in Paddy Power’s alternative handicap market, where they’re 4/1 (-1 point), effectively meaning they have to win by two points or more to land the money.
Saturday’s racing highlight is the John Smith’s Cup heritage handicap (York, 3.05), where we can’t get away from favourite IMPOSING. Sir Michael Stoute’s four-year-old was left with an impossible task having been boxed in at the rear of the field with less than half a mile to race at Royal Ascot three weeks ago. When Ryan Moore finally negotiated some racing room, he flew down the outside only to go down by a neck. The drop back to 1m2f on Saturday may not exactly be in his favour but granted more luck in running he should prove very difficult to beat off the same mark.
No matter which way you look, the World Cup final is the main event of the weekend and we believe Spain, like a thoroughbred champion, have timed their run perfectly and look like producing their best when it matters most. The midweek win over Germany, when a 1-0 result was immensely flattering to the losing side, was by far their best performance of the tournament. Another 1-0 is 5/1 but we think Spain could underline their supremacy with a comparatively wide-margin victory. SPAIN TO WIN 2-0 is 15/2.
A €3 patent (total outlay €21) could collect €1023 if we land all three bets.
Break the Bookie
This is the fun part of the weekend, where we aim for three monster punts which could have you banned from your local bookies.
We’ll start with the World Cup final and continuing the Spain to win 2-0 theme, we’ll go for the half-time/full-time correct score bet. We expect it to be tight for most of the evening, so a 0-0 HALF-TIME, 2-0 FULL-TIME DOUBLE is the one that takes our eye at 22/1.
It’s a Dubs double-header at Croke Park on Saturday evening, with the hurlers facing Clare and footballers taking on Tipperary in the qualifiers.
We’ll have a look at the first goalscorer market in hurling. DARACH HONAN impressed in his side’s narrow Munster championship defeat to Waterford, scoring 1-3 of his side’s total, and he is 7/1 to follow up with the first green flag at Croker.
Sticking with hurling and first goalscorers, we like the look of Cork’s PATRICK HORGAN (pictured top) in the Munster final. Horgan has bagged three goals in two Championship matches to date and looks well-priced at 13/2 to crack home the first goal of Sunday’s big game at Semple Stadium.
A tenner on those three would return a cool €13,800, enough to keep the missus in perfume for the rest of her life.
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