NRL Round 23 Wrap

Well what a disappointment this week was (well until the Raiders played).

We started the week with a recommended bet on the Sea Eagles against the top 4 Bulldogs, and thought the inclusion of Jamie Lyon may be the deciding factor. Little did we realise how right we were, he certainly did decide it, with his inability to kick field goals or penalties. Even DCE, who cost us badly a few weeks ago with his left foot FG in the rain all of a sudden couldn't kick either. So what promised to be a great great start to the week ended in disappointment. The only good thing was we had the tip right and were within 2 points on the margin.

The next two games saw us predict the Broncos and Titans wins, with the model being one point out on the Broncos margin and exactly right on the Titans to win by a point (that's twice the model has got the Titans winning by a point spot on!).

So after three games, no winning but model is on fire.

Roll on the Warriors, who were our next H2H bet, line bet and multi bet contributor. We sort of predicted the fact that whenever we are bullish about a NZ win, they are shit, and so it proved. To make matters worse, it was the f*cking Bunnies, who finally played a decent game to just rub it in. NZ have secured our "worst team to bet on award" now, costing us 5 units and plenty more besides. We are not bitter at TBP, but it will a cold day in hell before we bet on these chokers again.

The last of our three bets saw the Raiders take on the Storm in a top of the table battle. Oh and what a battle. The Storm have the best defence in the league and the Raiders one of the best attacks. But it was the Raiders defence that won the game. It was immense and if you didn't already think the Raiders were a shot at the title (we did put them forward as out tip before Round 1) then you should now. If they keep that intensity up each week who can beat them? So the Raiders win saved our NRL week (well sort of) and thankfully for TBP followers our AFL model has finally kicked into top gear, with some brilliant wins, so all up, if you take a diversity approach, we are still up for the week (and the cricket bet on Australia having a first innings lead came in too, just).