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Non-league Football Betting: Grecians to 'Urn' their stripes

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We're under starters orders for the first of the Blue Square Premier play-offs tonight with a mouthwatering Devon Derby Live on Setanta.

One thing you can be fairly sure of tonight is that goals will be scored given that both sides are averaging close to two per game this season. Laying the 0-0 draw in the correct score market and/or no goal in the next goal market look like the first of many profitable opportunities tonight.

The league fixture at St James over Xmas was a pulsating 4-3 success for the Grecians who have plenty of in-form fire-power in the boots of Adam Stansfield, Dean Moxey and Richard Logan. They scored four in their final day fixture at Burton too and I can see Paul Tisdale using the gung-ho philosophy in this game to try and intimidate the slightly suspect Torquay back-four (and goalkeeper!) and they'll hope to carry a decent lead through to the second leg at Plainmoor.

Exeter are as big as [2.56] in the match odds which strikes me as large considering just one defeat at St James in the league this season. Seeing as drawing was their thing early, the cautious punter might fancy the lay on Torquay at around [3.0] but I'll nail my colours to the mast and Back Exeter tonight at the price.

Tomorrow night's other Blue Square Premier semi-final is more difficult to call. Nigel Clough's Burton have a solid record overall at the Pirelli but are up against the defensive maestro that is Jimmy Quinn's Cambridge. The U's boast the best keeper in Danny Potter and Danny Gleeson and Mark Peters bring a degree of class to their back four. Because of that I think they'll be a difficult one for Burton to roll over.

The league games were very tight affairs that favoured Cambridge and although my heart lies with the Albion, I fear their slight wobble factor in games like this whereas 'The Mighty Quinn' is chiselled from granite and knows how to engineer a play-off success from his time at Shrewsbury. Cambridge might just have more mettle and whilst I'm far from confident that they'll even be playing to win in this first leg, backing them at [3.0] does strike me as a value punt.

Both candidates in our Blue Square North and South portfolio performed well in their first legs. Alan Devonshire's Hampton & Richmond get their chance to set up a final humdinger with Eastbourne on Saturday in the second leg against Fisher. I expect the club who boast a famous sitcom writer as their chairman to prevail at odds of around [1.84]. Ten points in the Boz quiz to the first Betfairian to correctly identify the famous sitcoms written by the Hampton & Richmond chairman (there are two answers!). Post your answers using the comment tool at the bottom of this page.

Recommendations:

2pts Back, Exeter to beat Torquay at [2.56] or greater
1pt Lay, 0-0 correct score in Exeter-Torquay match
0.5pt Back, Cambridge to beat Burton at [3.0] or greater
1pt Hampton & Richmond to beat Fisher at [1.84] or greater