Tag Archives: nrl

Preview, Punting, Sports

Professor’s red hotties for Doomben races on 11 May 2019 and his weekend parlay

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The Professor has decided to study the Queensland form today and stay away from the rain affected track at Caulfield. Last weekend’s successful parlay had to wait until extra time for Adelaide United’s last minute winner!

Don’t forget to back the tips each way!

Doomben

Race 4 Horse 12 – Multaja (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 1 – Osborne Bulls (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Weekend Parlay

Race 7 Horse 2 – Mr Quickie (at Morphetville) into South Sydney Rabbitohs to beat North Queensland Cowboys (NRL) into Manchester City to beat Brighton and Hove Albion (Premier League).

You can hear the Professor and Coutta discuss today’s race results on Sportzfan Radio tomorrow from midday on 88.3 Southern FM, the Sounds of the Bayside.

Good luck and good punting!

The Professor

Preview, Punting, Sports

PROFESSOR’S RED HOT Tips FOR Flemington RACES ON 4 May 2019 AND HIS WEEKEND PARLAY

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After a nice start to last weekend’s tipping, the Professor’s parlay was brought undone by the Newcastle Knights. Hopefully this weekend he can get the three selections up. As for the races, the Flemington track is rated a Good 4 at this stage but wet weather is forecast so that rating could fall during the meeting. The rail is eleven metres out for the whole track.

Flemington

Race 3 Horse 1 – Fidelia (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 4 – Call me Handsome (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Professor’s Weekend Parlay

Race 3 Horse 1 – Fidelia into Sydney Roosters to defeat Wests Tigers (NRL) into Adelaide United to defeat Melbourne City (A League).

Good luck and good punting!

The Professor

Preview, Punting, Sports

Professor’s red hotties for Caulfield races on 27 April 2019 and his weekend parlay

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The Professor returns to Victoria with his selections today concentrating on the meeting at Caulfield. The track is currently rated a Good 4 but there is a threat of rain during the day so that rating could change. The rail is out 5 metres.

Make sure to back the selections each way.

Caulfield

Race 7 Horse 8 – Mr Quickie (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 9 Horse 10 – Miss Leonidas (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Weekend Parlay

Race 7 Horse 8 – Mr Quickie into Parramatta Eels to beat the Newcastle Knights (NRL) into Perth Glory to beat Wellington Phoenix (A League).

You can hear the Professor and Coutta discuss today’s racing and the parlay on Sportzfan Radio from midday tomorrow on 88.3 Southern FM, the Sounds of the Bayside.

Good luck and good punting!

The Professor

Preview, Punting, Sports

Professor’s red hot tips for Randwick races on 20 April 2019 & his weekend parlay

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The Professor’s first attempt at a weekend parlay saw only one leg up but the confidence is not lost so we will persist today. Racing wise today’s tips are for Randwick where the track is rated a Good 4 and the rail is 6 metres out from the 1600 metre mark to the winning post and 4 metres out for the rest of the track.

Randwick

Race 7 Horse 2 – Osborne Bulls (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 8 Horse 2 – Home of the Brave (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

Weekend parlay

Race 8 Horse 2 – Home of the Brave into Warriors to beat Cowboys (NRL) into Western Sydney Wanderers to beat Central Coast Mariners (A League)

Good luck and good punting!

The Professor

Preview, Punting, Sports

Professor’s Red Hotties for Randwick on 13 April 2019 & this week’s Racing, NRL & A League parlay

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The Professor has decided to stay at Randwick this Saturday celebrating Winx having her final run. The track is rated a Soft 5 with the rail three metres out.

Don’t forget to back the tips each way!

Randwick

Race 2 Horse 12 – Millard Reaction (for the ladies at the Tennis club)
Race 10 Horse 5 – Spright (also for the ladies at the Tennis club)

This weekend’s parlay:

Race 10 Horse 5 – Spright into Newcastle Knights  (v Manly Sea Eagles – NRL) into Melbourne Victory (v Central Coast Mariners – A-League).

You can hear the Professor discuss the racing results tomorrow on Sportzfan Radio from midday on 88.3 Southern FM, the Sounds of the Bayside.

We’ll be doing the show tomorrow from the Rotunda at Bentleigh shops.

Good luck and good punting!

The Professor

News, Sports

Weekend musing – the Brownlow medal, Grand Finals in AFL & NRL……

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I was pleasantly surprised to listen to Dustin Martin at his Brownlow presentation on Monday night. He came over a lot better than I had envisioned and he seemed like a reasonable bloke who loves his footy. Bruce McAvaney was a little sickening, but he did a good job getting Martin to talk so it worked.

With 36 votes Martin scored exactly the same amount as the entire All Australian back line of Rory Laird (9) votes, Alex Rance (8), Michael Hibberd (7), Sam Docherty (5), Michael Hurley (4) and Jeremy McGovern (3). While I am not suggesting that Martin did not deserve his votes, it is a little hard to accept that these six champion players could only amass 36 votes between them as most of them are big ball winners as well. The forward line did significantly better with a total of 75 votes, but the forward line included Dane Zorko (14) and Robbie Gray (12) who are essentially mid-fielders and Lance Franklin (22) who seems to capture the umpires eye. With five votes it did endorse my view that Eddie Betts was lucky to make the team.

It was also interesting to see that nine of the 18 clubs had two players that secured half or more of their teams votes and at Richmond, Martin almost did that himself with 36 votes out of a team total of 80. As much as it is great to have a Brownlow medalist from your team, from a team perspective it is better to have a spread of vote getters. The two top teams were Adelaide and Sydney who both had 88 votes, but the contrast was that Adelaide’s top four Sloane, M.Crouch, Jacobs & Atkins contributed 51 votes and Sydney’s top four of Kennedy, Franklin, Parker & Hannebery contributed 67 votes with Hannebery only contributing 6 votes. I think the upshot from this was Adelaide had more to handle in trying to control Martin it will than Richmond had trying to control Rory Sloane…and that is how it turned out yesterday. One thing that the Brownlow coverage brought home was how disappointing it is that Jobe Watson is no longer a Brownlow medalist. To see Cotchin & Mitchell lauded as medalists was disappointing whereas I had not thought about it much beforehand.

The Grand Final was a reasonable game and even though I thought Adelaide were the better side going into the game, the Grand Final was played on Richmond’s home ground which, in my view evened out the contest. Richmond were worthy premiers and it says something for a Club that decided to hold fast in the face of great criticism of their 2016 performance. If the Tigers had buckled at the end of last season and sacked Damian Hardwick, I doubt they would have climbed to the heights of premiership glory.

The Melbourne Storm are my fancies in the NRL decider today. They
have had a great season led by Dally M medallist Cameron Smith. North Queensland Cowboys have had a remarkable run to the Grand Final but I believe they will fall short especially as they are without their champion play maker Jonathan Thurston.

Have a great weekend!

Sports

Weekend Musing – droughts broken in AFL and NRL, Winx steps out…..

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Sfan OB6Well what a great AFL Grand Final and a result that is good for football. With the Doggies breaking their 62 year premiership drought, it brings to 4 the number of significant droughts broken in the last 15 years. First you had Brisbane/Fitzroy breaking a 47 year drought in 2001, then Sydney/Sth Melbourne breaking a 72 year drought in 2005 and Geelong breaking a 44 year drought in 2007. This now leaves Melbourne (1964) & St Kilda (1966) as the two established clubs with the longest droughts and with both sides having encouraging years this year, who knows we may see another drought broken shortly.

I must say that Luke Beveridge handing over his medal to Bob Murphy was a wonderful gesture, but equally Murphy giving it back was the right thing to do. Without trying to kill Bambi, I am getting a bit tired of the love for Bob Murphy. Yes he is the captain and spiritual leader of the Doggies, but he is not the only player that has missed out on a premiership due to injury or suspension. I have always felt sorry for the recently deceased Neville Crowe who was captain of Richmond in 1967 when John Nicholls feigned being struck and Crowe missed the 1967 premiership as a result. That was also a drought breaking premiership win for the Tigers (24 years).

In the NRL we also saw the Cronulla Sharks win their first premiership since they entered the competition 50 years ago. I obviously wanted the Storm to win, but again it is hard to begrudge a club a drought breaking premiership.

The attention of the sporting public now turns to horse racing and the Spring Carnival. The Melbourne public see Winx for the first time since the Cox Plate last year. She is in a three horse field and sometimes these races can provide an upset because they can become a “sit and sprint”. If that is the case it may favour Black Heart Bart who is clearly the best sprinter of the three acceptors.

Have a great weekend!

Sports

Weekend musing – NRL, State of Origin, Laurie Daley, AFL, Lindsay Thomas…..

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Chris Barwin HillsThe first of the NRL State of Origin matches on Wednesday night ended up being a pretty dour affair if you were wanting a lot of scoring action or fireworks between the teams. Each side completed most of their sets of tackles, but there was very few exciting runs to get the crowd on its feet. There were mistakes from both sides, but it seemed they daley played conservatively waiting for the other side to make an error on which they could capitalise. NSW had a try disallowed late in the game and, given the video replay, it is hard to see how the linesman awarded the try in the first place. There was a flurry of bodies and the ball was not clear even on slow motion replay. I think the linesman had a guess based on the momentum of the NSW player (Morris).

Laurie Daly came out after the game and complained about the referees, but based on my untrained eye, the mistakes went both ways so his comments can probably be put down to the protestations of a losing coach.

It is amazing how the Friday night AFL game can set the conversation for the weekend and the following week with the thomasLindsay Thomas  free kicks sparking a tsunami of comment and analysis. I have spoken about those free kicks before and how difficult it is for the umpires to adjudicate. Most teams know who the principal perpetrators are and when confronted with those players the tackler should concentrate on going in as low as possible and forget about pinning the arms because these players seem loathe to release the ball. The result should be a holding the ball decision against the perpetrator.

I must say I have to agree with the over analyser, Dermott Brereton, that Thomas took it to a new level last Friday night when he backeddermott into the Swans defender and then dragged his arm down over his shoulder as well. In discussions on Saturday, Brereton did go through the main protagonists and did not just single out Thomas. The comment was made that we are happy when it is our team that is the recipient of the free kick, but livid when it is the other side.  I am upset because no one at Essendon has developed the skill and we need a few gifts in our forward line!

Have a great weekend!

Sports

Friday musing – Premier League, NAB challenge, NRL

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Chris Barwin HillsWith the EPL results this week it would appear that the title race and the race for the top four positions are still up for grabs with seemingly no side in contention performing to expectations. Leicester are still inspurs front and have stretched their lead by a point with a draw and Tottenham and Arsenal wasted great opportunities to make up the ground. We now see Manchester United and West Ham United with a real chance to get the coveted fourth position with Manchester City losing again. The title is there is be taken by the side that gets into a bit of form. The result of this week’s London derby between Tottenham and Arsenal could be crucial in the end result. From a purely unbiased perspective….’Go Gunners’.

I have heard a lot of AFL commentators criticise the teams that have been selected for the NAB Challenge and the standard of the games. What must be remembered is that nothing really hinges on these GCSgames. They are purely practice matches and sides will play how they wish and who they wish. I can appreciate that the media wants more and the AFL always likes to promote the games as being serious, but when it all boils down, it is the pre-season and the expectation that teams will treat them as any more than ‘practice’ is misguided.

The NRL season kicked off last night and it is great to see action on eelsthe field replace all the off field insanity.  For the record books, the Brisbane Broncos knocked off the Parramatta Eels. The Broncos seem like they have picked up where they left off in 2015 and the Eels look like they are in for a long season.

Have a great weekend!

Sports

Friday musing – Essendon supplement scandal, Jobe Watson, David Bowie….

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Chris Barwin HillsWell it has been a hell of a week for an Essendon supporting David Bowie fan.

Firstly on the Essendon situation, I was not surprised they were found guilty as the news filtering through from the CAS hearing was that it did not go as well as the AFL/ASADA hearing, but I was surprised that the players got twelve months as this was not predicted even with a guilty verdict. Discussion on the topic has beencas hard to avoid, but I have purposely not read anything as what has been done cannot be undone. What has annoyed me is the people that have come out and said that the players should have taken the suspension which was offered to them by ASADA. Well that is all very well, but do you admit to something when you truly believe you are innocent? I wouldn’t and I think that the players felt the same way. The initial AFL/ASADA hearing also vindicated that view. ‘Comfortable Satisfaction’ was always going to be the problem as it is a very low test and so it played out.

There has been a lot of discussion about Jobe Watson’s Brownlow medal and while it pains me that such a low standard of proof should cost him the games highest individual honour, he has been found watsonguilty and the medal has to be relinquished. However, I do not agree that the medal should then be awarded to the runners up, Trent Cotchin and Sam Mitchell. The Brownlow medal is not like an Olympic race or event, it is awarded over twenty-two weeks played in different venues all over Australia. Also do you go back and award higher votes to players who finished behind Jobe when he polled 3 & 2 votes? I don’t think you can, so the fairest result would be to not award the medal for 2012 similar to how Melbourne Storm was treated when the NRL removed their premiership wins.

And what has David Bowie got to do with sport, well he played in Melbourne on four occasions and the venues were, the MCG, Kooyong, Waverley Park and Rod Laver Arena. The first show atbowie the MCG was one of my very best experiences at that venue and the final show at Rod Laver Arena was probably the best of the four concerts that I saw him play in Melbourne. In addition, he also wrote a song called Bombers which did not appear on any of his albums, but did appear as an additional track on a reissued CD. May he rest in peace.

Have a great weekend!