Make money from your rugby knowledge
Rugby is not a simple sport. Newcomers often find the complexity of the rules baffling, and judging by a lot of televised rugby, so do the commentators! But when it comes to betting, complexity is the punters friend. Knowledge is power, and if you know your rugby, you will have an advantage, enabling you to tackle those rugby betting markets with confidence.
Know your tournaments
Rugby is built around tournaments, and each tournament has its own particular demands. For example, the most popular northern hemisphere club tournaments such as the Aviva Premiership, the Top 14 and the Pro 14, take place at the same time as internationals, so the fortunes of individual teams can fluctuate wildly depending on how many internationals they have on their books, and the quality of their replacements.
The main southern hemisphere club tournament, Super Rugby, takes place across four continents so travel, jet-leg and at some venues, severe altitude differences are significant factors (along with the near total dominance of the top New Zealand sides).
And home advantage comes into play again with international rugby, particularly in tournaments such as the Six Nations and the Rugby Championship, where, with national pride at stake, the in-stadium atmosphere can be more intimidating for visiting sides.
Know your teams
Yes, New Zealand is better than Canada, but that level of knowledge won’t take you very far. If you want to win at rugby betting you need to know every team like the back of your hand. You need to know their style of play, their strengths, their weaknesses, their squad depth, their fitness levels; everything, essentially. No matter how much you love your rugby, this can sometimes be a tedious process, but think of it as the price you pay for success. If you want to come up with those profitable nuggets, you’ve got to dig.
Applying your knowledge
The importance of building up your knowledge of the teams you will be betting on is that it enables you to instantly spot a good bet.
Take the weather, for example. Wet conditions make it harder to play running, expansive rugby. If you happen to know that Team A has a grinding forward-based game plan while Team B prefers to spread the ball wide and play a more progressive style, then a forecast of heavy rain will tilt the scales in favour of Team A and could help you spot a good bet.
Team news is another potential source of betting nuggets. Rugby is an incredibly technical game, as well as being physically demanding, and the absence of one or two key players will have a much more significant effect on a team’s chances than in other sports. This is why knowing the strengths and weaknesses of a team’s best players – as well as the ability of their likeliest replacements – can pay big dividends for the rugby punter.
Play the handicaps, but tread carefully
Rugby can throw up some pretty one-sided games, particularly in the international arena. In these games, the favourite is often available at eye-wateringly short odds, so unless you’ve got a million or two in your betting bank, you’ll have to play the handicap markets.
But here’s where it gets tricky. The bottom line in a game of rugby is to beat your opponents. Running up a huge score, even if a team is capable of doing so, is not usually the priority. So just because you think Team A can beat Team B by 30 points, doesn’t mean they will, particularly if the tournament they are playing in confers no additional bonus points for number of tries scored, or if they have a more important game coming up.
Few things are more frustrating in rugby betting than watching a team you have backed to cover a 20 point handicap taking their foot off the gas with a 15 point lead. If you aren’t factoring the motivations of the two sides into your handicap betting, you could come unstuck.
Check out the try-scoring markets
While most of your rugby betting will probably be done in the Handicap or Tournament winners markets, success can be found in some of the try-related markets.
One potential route to profit involves identifying when forwards offer good value to score. Some forwards are more likely to score than others, particularly those in the back row, but there is often value to be had by backing forwards in the try scorers markets, particularly in games that are likely to be forward-dominated.
Conclusion
As with any form of betting, you can’t make money from rugby without working hard. By doing your research and giving yourself a solid base of rugby knowledge, then applying this knowledge intelligently to the betting markets, you will maximise your chances of success.
