CHIEFS 7/20 vs SHARKS 22/10 (Odds quoted are for lifting the cup)
The long and arduous journey which started back in late February reaches its conclusion in Hamilton, NZ at 9:35 on Saturday morning.
It’s worth noting that the ante-post prices of the two finalists was Chiefs 14/1 and Sharks 12/1 ; so this final can hardly be described as a ‘form result’. But it does highlight the fact that there was expected to be little to choose between the two sides over the course of the full season.
Had you been astute enough to choose one or both sides as your ‘destination’ punt then you should have amassed a king’s ransom in stock during the course of the season as the Chiefs traded as high as 16/1 whilst the Sharks could also have been punted at 25/1 in Week 11 and again at that price as recently as Week 17. These prices certainly give the lie to the widely held misconception that sports betting is not a proposition as prices are always too short.
As mentioned in a previous post – the other amazing statistic from this season has been the complete absence of a draw in any of the matches; something which has not happened before in the entire history of Super Rugby.
If you are contemplating a punt on Saturday be sure to check your bets : Are you punting your fancy to lift the cup or are you simply backing them over 80 minutes?
A lot has already been written about this final so I will try not to repeat it here other than to make a couple of general observations :
Both sides have yet to succeed in a final. The Chiefs have failed once and the Sharks 3 times. In defence of both sides all but one of the abovementioned finals were ‘away from home’ fixtures for the losing side.
Last week the Sharks’ success started from the first scrum and spread from there. But a notable aspect of their front row is that their scrumming often starts like a house on fire for the first 20 minutes and thereafter becomes quite ‘manageable’ once the initial adrenalin has been expended. Unlike the Crusaders who appear able to orchestrate a big scrum on demand. My concern for the Sharks this week is that the Beast is fronted by one Ben Tameifuna – a 20 yr old 135kg monster who is a far cry from the marshmallow Brock Harris of last week. Consequently the front row dominance which I predicted last week might not be so easy to achieve on this occasion.
When is a concussion not a concussion? There is an anomaly in the rules, surely. Bismarck Du Plessis was knocked out cold in his collision with Eben Etzebeth last week. I fail to see how a knockout is not also a concussion of sorts. So should Bismarck even be playing this week given that concussions equal a mandatory 2 week suspension under IRB rules?
I hope Charl McLeod spends a lot less time appealing to the referee and more time sniping around the fringes of the scrum. He will certainly need to be a lot more vigilant as his opponent has been making merry doing just that for the whole season.
It is no little irony that Steve Walsh will be handling this match. He will forever be remembered as the man who missed a vital knock on in the dying minutes of the 2007 final when Habana scored that heartbreaking try deep into injury time. Interestingly the ‘culprit’ whose missed conversion allowed the Bulls the opportunity to grab that improbable win –Frans Steyn – is disqualified from playing in accordance with the rules of the competition. Might the account be balanced on Saturday? Sport is strange in that way.
Without labouring the point everything points to a Chiefs win. But the Sharks & Stormers are the only South African sides who have consistently won away from home and particularly in NZ. So the sense of inevitable doom that would accompany the Bulls, Lions or Cheetahs in a similar clash is not present.
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