As anyone who bought a house in Ireland in the last five years will tell you, jumping on board a moving bandwagon can be a very dangerous game. Mistiming such a jump were one to take it literally would result in a serious dent to one’s physical well being, much like mistiming such a metaphorical jump could similarly result in a serious dent in one’s financial well being. Obviously it’s a lot easier to limit one’s exposure in the betting game than it is when buying a home, but there is still plenty of risk attached in looking at a graph and guessing that the recent upward trend is likely to continue.

From several weeks back, Off the Ground was looking forward to this weekend’s betting and suspected that there was likely to be real value in taking a punt on Tír Chonall Gaels to surprise Kilmurry-Ibrickane. The London champions have participated in this competition in each of the past two seasons and two creditable performances resulted in games against Crossmaglen Rangers in 2008 (0-10 to 0-6) and Corofin last year (2-7 to 0-6).

Kilmurry-Ibrickane’s win in the Munster championship this year presented TCG with the best opportunity that any London champion has ever had to pull off an upset in this fixture, a dream that has looked all the more attainable since news has broken of the knee injury to Odhrán O’Dwyer. Kilmurry-Ibrickane were worthy Munster champions, but the province did lack any real contenders, and one would venture to argue that if KIB were to play Crossmaglen Rangers and Corofin, they too would probably end up between four and seven points on the wrong side of the final result.

There are several other aspects regarding this game which point in the favour of the home side. For KIB, the Munster championship was their main goal for the season and while they’ll talk a good game regarding the All Ireland title, deep down they’ll know that wins over Portlaoise and one of Galls and Corofin are probably beyond them. TCG have benefitted hugely from the demise of the Celtic Tiger, and the scoring of Donegal recruit Kevin McMenamin could push them into the kind of double figure scoreline that they’re likely to need this weekend.

However it was Joseph Kennedy who said that when the shoe shine boys are giving stock tips, it’s time to get out of the market – and in a similar vein, Off the Ground has been somewhat un-nerved by the amount of casual GAA followers who seem to be tipping up the London champions this weekend. Having been available at 8/1 to reach the quarter final before a very ordinary Munster Final pairing went head to head, they are now merely 4/1 shots with Ladbrokes and even shorter elsewhere, while the handicap is an extremely moderate three. The money is slowly but surely going on the Gaels.

This of course begs the question – is a vague sense of uneasiness sufficient reason to pull the plug on what was likely to be the first large stakes recommendation of 2010? Of course it isn’t. Value is value, logic is logic and “gut feelings”, while not to be ignored, cannot form the central plank of any betting decision.

The more pertinent question is whether value remains at odds of 4/1 – and though there might be to a certain degree, the juice has definitely been squeezed out of it a little. Since 5/4 is available about taking three points along with the win, that looks like much the better option of the two choices. A combined 24% is well worth paying for three discrete outcomes in a game like this where both defences are likely to be on top, and though we aren’t going to recommend as strongly as we might have before the world and it’s mother looked to get on board, we’re still going to suggest that viewers on Sunday’s match on TG4 side with the home team. A 3pt bet on Tír Chonaill Gaels plus three points is the recommended bet.

Tags: All Ireland Championship, Kilmurry-Ibrickane, Tir Chonaill Gaels

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Gaelic Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.