Heineken Cup / Geoffrey Riddle / 01 May 2009 / Leave a comment

Leicester are in fine shape but Cardiff are accurately priced as favourites for Sunday's semi-final at the Millenium Stadium, says Geoffrey Riddle. Meanwhile, on Saturday, can Leinster upset the form book in the all Irish clash?

History is an important tool that, as a culture, we try to use in the hope of avoiding similar mistakes. Punters also try to take history into consideration, the formbook being a slightly more interesting text than anything a humanities master ever gave me to read at school. The trick, however, is not just learning the lessons that history can teach us but applying them in a way that can lead to profit.

Take this weekend's Heineken Cup semi-finals between Cardiff and Leicester at the Millennium Stadium, and Munster's all-Irish confrontation against Leinster at Croke Park. The formbook offers up a confusing picture to Sunday's Millennium showdown and before kick-off you could be forgiven for backing either side if you took history as your guide. In Ireland though, the recent superiority of Munster indicates that Leinster may well be up against it on Saturday.

At face value Leicester have crossed Offa's Dyke before and beaten the Blues, and quite recently, too. In the Pool stages in 2006-07, Leicester marched into the Welsh capital and beat Cardiff 21-17, and anyone punting on Sunday's encounter might look at this match and think that the Tigers are a dream bet a [2.34] in the match betting market.

And maybe they are. Statistically, Welsh sides have lost more knockout rounds at home in Europe than they have won. English sides generally have done quite well in Wales in the Heineken Cup over the years as well. But Cardiff lost prop Gary Powell to a red card in the 50th minute that day, and the Blues are a very different proposition now. A glance at the venerable Euro rugby table produced at the time shows how much better Leicester were than their opponents ahead of that tie. A look at the table now shows that the two teams are considered about equal. Gone too is Cardiff's patchy European record, and they will stand before Richard Cockerill's men boasting a 100% European success rate this season. They also have the dubious honour of being EDF Energy champions after their drubbing of Gloucester.

Leicester are in fine shape at the moment, though, having thumped a disappointing Bristol side last weekend, and you don't need to have had a pint with Cockerill to know that the Tigers' camp is bristling with confidence. Lewis 'Crazy Horse' Moody is back from injury and both sides are relatively fresh for this point in the season.

As a result, I would leave the match betting market to the traders, because all in all, the history lessons here indicate that there is precious room for manoeuvre, with Cardiff accurately priced as favourites at around the [1.82] mark.

Where there might be hint of value perhaps is in the total points market, although I think it is more of hunch than a considered betting proposition. Consider the fact that there has been just one match in the entire 26 game history of Heineken Cup semi-finals where a try hasn't been scored (It's the 18-9 win by over Bath Rugby in San Sebastian in 2006, if you are wondering).

Cardiff's games have been low scoring recently, but that partly could be down to rustiness becuase they have had few games since January. Their 50-point mauling of Gloucester couldn't have been more impressive.

Leicester average 18.7 points on the road this calendar year, racking up some big scores against the more free-flowing sides such as Wasps and London Irish. If Cardiff are to justify favouritism at all, and Leicester perform better than average, it won't take much for both teams to combine and bust the overs in the total points market.

The rivalry between Munster and Leinster began in 1876, so there is plenty of form for anoraks to get stuck into. The key factor though for Saturday's furious head-to-head is that Munster destroyed Leinster 30-6 at this stage of the Heineken Cup in 2006.

Now, that may seem a long time ago but there is a chance that Munster may field no fewer than 10 of that victorious squad on Saturday, and Leinster may name over half of that losing side. What's more, Leinster lost 18-0 to their old rivals at the RDS in a blood and thunder encounter earlier this season, the first time in five years that they had lost at home to Irish opposition. Munster then confirmed their superiority with a 22-5 win against Leinster earlier this month at Thomond Park.

I cannot for a moment see how the Dubliners possibly can turn this around and Munster deserve to be as short as [1.33].

Sport is full of upsets, and at much greater quotes of odds against than Leinster's [4.4]. But it will take something magical and wondrous to turn around Munster's proven superiority, and history shows that if you make the right choices, time and again, you'll come out on top, whatever the odds may be.