Gaelic football, hurling, World Cup quarter-finals, horse-racing and Tour de France cycling – it’s all packed into this weekend’s sports tips.
Weekend Patent
A lot is made of greatness in sport. Johnny Giles bangs the drum about it. Eamon Dunphy too. How is it defined? Often the preferred way is to hold up someone from the past and say, ‘That’s greatness’. Muhammad Ali is great. Pele is great. The passage of time is usually the thing that confers greatness – it is rare indeed to find a currently active sportsman or group of sportsmen about which there is no dispute over their claims to ‘greatness’.
The Kilkenny hurling team is a member of that rare breed. What makes the great game of hurling so unique, and not necessarily in a good way, is that you mightn’t pick them out of a police line-up. You’d know Henry Shefflin or Tommy Walsh, of course you would, but how many of you would be certain that it was Eddie Brennan or JJ Delaney or Jackie Tyrrell you’d just seen buying a pair of jeans in Next?
Anyway, Kilkenny will take their next step on a great journey towards five in a row when they meet Galway in the Leinster final at Croke Park on Sunday. The Cats need three more wins to become the first GAA team of all time to win five successive All-Irelands.
Galway will put it up to them, as they always tend to do, but they’ve been out the past two weekends while Kilkenny have had their feet up. Expect Brian Cody’s heroes to pull away in the last ten minutes. They’re 7/1 to win by 10-12 points and that looks a bit of value.
For JOE’s preview of all the weekend’s hurling action, click here.
Forget last weekend’s Germany-England mash-up, to all genuine fans of football undoubtedly the most eagerly awaited game in this World Cup takes place on Saturday afternoon with the meeting of the Germans and Argentina.
These sides have been the top scorers in the tournament with 19 goals between them, and they’re also the only teams left who’ve scored four times in one game at this tournament (England, unforgettably, were one of the sides on the receiving end – can you name the other two?).
Right, so how do we see it going? Argentina have been irresistible going forward, with a front three of Tevez, Messi and Higuain backed up by Maxi Rodriguez and Angel Di Maria on the wings offering the tantalising prospect of all-out attack, all the time. However, they’re hugely suspect at the back, and Germany should be better placed than most to exploit the vulnerabilities of Martin DeMichelis, who’s an accident waiting to happen. The Germans to win in 90 minutes is 11/5.
The big race of the weekend is the Group 1 Coral-Eclipse at Sandown on Saturday afternoon, which, with just six entries, doesn’t look to be as strong a renewal as in previous years. Aidan O’Brien (below) has won this four times in the past decade and relies solely on Viscount Nelson this time. He’s far from a typical O’Brien champion – he’s won just two of his eight starts, and is 0 from 3 as a three-year-old – but it wouldn’t be a great surprise to see him challenge at the top level on this occasion.
On the evidence of both breeding and racing – he’s by Giants Causeway out of Oaks heroine Imagine and stayed on well behind the supreme Canford Cliffs in the Irish 2000 Guineas in May – Viscount Nelson should appreciate the step up to ten furlongs for the first time and he could improve O’Brien’s record in the Coral-Eclipse to five wins in the last 11 runnings. He’s 6/1 with Paddy Power to do so.
A €3 patent (total outlay €21) could land you €904.20
Break the Bookie
This is the fun part of our weekend bet, where we aim for three long-shots that could go a long way towards paying for the anniversary present. Which, I’m reminded, will be required soon.
We’re spoilt for GAA greatness on Sunday afternoon because before Kilkenny’s clash with Galway we get another chance to see Kerry in action against Limerick in the Munster senior football final.
Almost as dominant as Kilkenny, the current Kerry team has won four of the last six All-Irelands at a time when the race for the Sam Maguire Cup should really be more open than ever.
Cork looked the strongest side in the country bar none going into the Championship but throwing around praise like that is like a red rag to a bull (or a tattered Cork jersey to Kerrymen perhaps), and they underlined their pre-eminence in those two games against a Rebels side who look destined to remain forever in Kerry’s shadow.
Kerry are 1/6 to win and if you’re the type who bets in thousands rather than fivers even that looks a bit of value. That’s no good for break-the-bookie purposes, however, so we delved a bit deeper looking for a more attractive price and the one that caught our eye is Declan O’Sullivan (below) to score the first goal at 12/1.
Kieran Donaghy and Colm Cooper are the undoubted stars but they’ve each laid on more goals than they’ve scored so far this summer, and it’s only a matter of time before O’Sullivan finds the net so hopefully he can do the business for us on Sunday.
For JOE’s preview of all the weekend’s Gaelic football action, click here.
The Tour de France gets under way on Saturday afternoon in the standard fashion, the short individual time trial or prologue. Fabian Cancellara is the odds on favourite and deserves to be – he’s won the majority of prologues he’s entered and is the defending World and Olympic Time Trial champion. If things are to go wrong for the Swiss, then American David Zabriskie could be one to benefit. Zabriskie has a Tour de France prologue win on his CV and has won the American National Time Trial Championship for the past four years, so this is his expert discipline. He’s 30/1 with Paddy Power to be wearing the yellow jersey after Saturday’s prologue.
Back to Saturday’s big World Cup game, and if our patent tip on Germany above is wide of the mark, there’s a good chance it’ll be down to one Lionel Messi (main picture).
The Barcelona superstar has failed to score at this World Cup so far but it would be unthinkable for him to finish the tournament without a goal to his name. If he gets off the mark early against the Germans there could be no stopping him. Amazingly, he’s scored four hat-tricks already in 2010 and he’s 25/1 to make that five against Germany.
A tenner on those three could net you €104,780 by the time the roast is carved on Sunday afternoon
***Click HERE to receive a FREE €25 BET when you set up a new account with Paddy Power***
