Punter backs Richmond for lastBy Kim Hagdorn
sportsnewsfirst.com.au
1 February 2011 03:11PM ESTSOME punters have little faith in emerging AFL superstar Jack Riewoldt’s golden boot lifting Richmond away from bottom rungs of the premiership ladder.
Despite booting a career best 78 goals last season to win his first Coleman Medal and Riewoldt’s Tigers winning five of their last 11 games, a punter has invested handsomely for Richmond to take the wooden spoon in 2011.
Leading betting agency sportsbet.com.au has taken a $5,000 investment from one punter at $15 to collect $75,000 for the Tigers to finish last in 2011.
The Tigers were firm favourites to collect last year’s unsavoury wooden spoon “award” and after a horrible opening month with four successive nine-goal losses sportsbet.com.au paid out over $150,000 to punters for their last-place finish wagers.
This year’s wooden spoon market was launched just last week and initially revealed at sportsnewsfirst.com.au with newcomers Gold Coast and struggling West Coast Eagles and Brisbane Lions on the first two lines of betting.
Richmond was fourth in early wooden spoon markets at $15, but have been reeled in to $12 with the investment lodged on Tuesday.
The wager prompted Richmond’s shortening in the market to finish last, according to sportsbet.com.au spokesman Haydn Lane.
“I think the Tigers will have a decent season this year but this punter clearly does not agree,” he said.
“We’ve priced the Gold Coast at $2 for the spoon which is our best guess at the moment but we’ll know far more about them as we get into the NAB Cup.
“I can see them getting tired toward the end of the season as they’ve got 15 games straight without a break after their second bye in round nine.”
Despite attracting decorated Geelong champion to Queensland as Gold Coast’s first captain, the league’s newest outfit remains shortest-priced wooden spoon prospects at $2, with West Coast and Brisbane at $4.75.
The Tigers are expected to continue to evolve this season under second-year coach Damien Hardwick with exciting young on-ballers Dustin Martin, Trent Cotchin and big Angus Graham as well as established veterans Chris Newman, Brett Deledio and Nathan Foley.
But, the Tigers do confront another potentially horror start to the new season with successive clashes against genuine 2011 premiership contenders Carlton, St Kilda, Hawthorn and then reigning champions Collingwood, all at the MCG.
Richmond’s best chances of some early wins then loom with clashes against North Melbourne at Etihad on Easter Sunday in Round 5 and then Brisbane back at the MCG a week later.
Other prospective winning outings on the surface of their draw appear to be against Essendon at the MCG in Round 9 and even Port Adelaide in Darwin the next week, before the Tigers bye in Round 11.
The Tigers only play Gold Coast once in a historic clash in Cairns in July in Round 17.
Richmond is the first AFL outfit onto an open stage to have some of their 2011 potential exposed when the young Tigers clash with the national Indigenous All-Stars in Alice Springs on Friday, February 4.
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