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Play-offs Betting: Arm wrestle of a match as Darlington play Rochdale

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Richard Walker expects plenty of goals in this second-leg play-off match as Darlington and Rochdale look for a place in Division One next season

Dangerous game, arm-wrestling. When you're competing, always best to take on someone of roughly the same build, I've found over the years...

Not only does it make for an even contest but also you're less likely to break your arm in, say, three places, like Rochdale's already-injured Lee Thorpe did when he took on Peterborough loanee Rene Howe on the team bus to Darlington last Saturday. How about that, eh! Good job it wasn't the other way round, since Howe's hit nine goals in 19 league starts since his temporary switch to Spotland from London Road back in January.

Dale boss Keith Hill has taken the wise step of banning arm-wrestling! Yes Keith, scourge of professional clubs it is, you're right. Reminds me in fact of an old Tommy Cooper gag where a bloke's spreading powder on a road. Another bloke approaches him and says "What's that?". "Crocodile repellant" comes the answer. "But there's not crocodiles round here!" says the bloke. "Yeah, great stuff, isn't it!". So beware all you arm-wrestling fans - please, just stick to pontoon or whist on your next long journey,

Anyway, sorry, there's a football match to preview here, right, and we find the Dale 2-1 down from the first leg at the Darlington Arena. Hill's team are [2.08] to win, Darlington about [4.0] and the draw's a [3.7] chance to back. In this world where form and trend have no home, just over evens for Dale is a bit short for my liking so I'll be backing Darlington - more in hope than expectation and because the teams are more evenly-matched that the Match Odds book would suggest.

Influential defender Nathan Stanton is back from a ban for the hosts while, for Darlo, Ben Parker and centre-half Alan White - who both featured in the first leg - are confident they'll recover from hamstring and dead leg (respectively) complaints. Commentators will this morning be fearful of the injury to Quakers' keeper David Stockdale. If his ankle isn't passed fit, then in will come Przemyslaw Kazimierczak. Yes, quite. None of this news is earth-shattering stuff and shouldn't unduly tip the scales either way.

We've seen already over this frantic last week or so that there is no way of mastering these matches; you've got to make sure your involvement can withstand in-game twists and turns. I'm going for a bit of a goal fest for this lunch time affair. Dale need to surge forward at home and Darlo ain't good enough defensively just to sit there and soak it up. So by all means back the Overs, at [2.24], in the Over/Under 2.5 goals market, but go further and say there'll be more than 3.5 goals at odds of [4.1].

I can see something like a 2-2 draw - a [20.0] shot in the Correct Score list - or perhaps even 3-2 either way. That's priced at [40.0] for a Dale win and, should Darlo nick it, you could return around [60.0]! Naturally I like to have a cover on my side when dealing with those fancy odds - so slap 0-0 in too at around [11.5].

As for personnel, there are more likely goalscoring candidates I'm sure, but I'm going to side with Gary Jones - a player who's spent most of his career at Spotland across two spells. Back him at odds of [5.8] in the To Score (at any time) list. More adventurous? Okay then, he's a [13.0] shot to notch first.

For the visitors, it's been quite a dry campaign for Quakers' veteran Julian Joachim; just six goals in 40-odd league starts. But these are the type of folk for the important occasion - and I couldn't put you off including him at either [4.5] To Score or [10.0] as the First Goalscorer.

I mentioned we'd not got as far as penalties in any of the second legs so far so it bears reminding that, in the Method of Victory market reserved for such knock-out occasions, back Dale or Darlo to win via spot-kicks yields a double-figure odds return. This just might be the game to get involved!