Super League Grand Final Betting 2009
With St Helens making their final preparations to take on the all-conquering Leeds Rhinos this Saturday, the 10th October 2009, in the Grand Final of this year's Super League, (in what promises to be a multi-try thriller for rugby league fans country-wide) Free Betting Online are seizing this opportunity to provide a Super League Grand Final betting 2009 low-down for the legions of you out there looking to make the right online bet ahead of the big game. Kick-off is at 6pm, and the apt setting is the gladiatorial arena normally the preserve of the reigning Barclays Premier League champions, Manchester United; as Old Trafford welcomes rugby league's annual showcase event of the season.
From a virtual gambling perspective, it's definitely a tight one for Super League Grand Final betting 2009 punters to call, with both teams being very much 'up for it' for differing reasons. With Leeds, it's all about cementing their position in the Rugby League Super League history books, whilst for St Helens (having already achieved this), it's more about revenge for their shortcomings in recent finals when their reputations have taken a battering.
As many Super League Grand Final betting 2009 observers will have already acknowledged, of late Leeds Rhinos have swept everyone aside in their power play rugby league displays and appear virtually indestructible. However you don't have to cast your minds back that far to recall a time when the balance of North West rugby league power was firmly in the hands of their opponents this weekend, St Helens. As it stands, St Helens hold the twin Super League record of most wins (4) and most appearances in a final (7), albeit with their last victory coming in 2006. So perhaps there's something Super League Grand Final betting 2009 fans can take from this underlying fact to help guide there choices.
Super League Grand Final Winner 2009 Betting Odds
According to the online bookies, Leeds Rhinos are just edging it, with 4 - 9 for the win being a popular price with Totesport, Betfred, SportingBet, Victor Chandler, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes, while the odds on St Helens loosening Leeds' vice-like grip on the Super league title are mixed amongst other leading virtual bookmakers. Betfred suggest 11 - 8, Boylesports 6 - 4, Skybet and Coral are both offering 6 - 4, while Stan James and William Hill are in agreeance at 11 - 8 on a St Helens victory on Saturday. Temptingly - given there's not a lot to pick between the two - William Hill have priced the eventuality of a drawn game at 16 - 1.
Delving a little deeper in the market - and with our focus remaining on William Hill - other Super League Grand Final betting options include predicting the 'home team winning margin, away team winning margin, last tryscorer, first team try, last team try, first scoring points, last scoring points, highest scoring half' and 'will the first try be converted' punts. What might be of particular interest to many of William Hill's online members though, is their Super League Grand Final special offer revolving around the first tryscorer this weekend. That's right, William Hill are offering to give their lucky punters £100 in free bets entitlements if you can name the first try scorer in this weekend's Super League Grand Final. Whoever gets first drawn out of the online tombola wins the £100 free bets booty for future sports betting.
Elsewhere and we noticed SportingBet were offering a Draw/Leeds Rhinos half time-full time bet at an inviting 20 - 1, while their odds of a player from either side ending up in the sin bin/or dismissed from the field of play altogether (and let's face it, the game will be a bruising, volatile encounter) is marked up at 4 - 1. Looking closely at first tryscorer betting with Ladbrokes, and Leeds' Lee Smith at 13 - 1 and St Helens' Sean Long at 21 - 1 are healthy prices, while Saints' James Roby (26 - 1) and Rhinos' Jamie Peacock (41 - 1) are worthy outside bets in our book.
Leeds Rhinos Edging It As Online Bookies' Super League Favourites
Back-to-back winners Leeds Rhinos will fancy their chances of notching up another victory against their old adversaries, but by the same token St Helens will surely channel their recent Grand Final failings at the hands of their nemesis and turn it into positive energy going into the showdown fixture with the team that's firmly established itself as the Saints' most bitter rivals in recent rugby league history. Notably St Helens will have the bit between their teeth on account of finishing the season as league leaders twice in succession, only to be thwarted by Leeds Rhinos on the day of the Grand Final courtesy of the play-off stipulations.
Either way this may well be the last time these two undoubted giants of the game come face-to-face in the Super League Grand Final if the closely run challenge of some new kids on the block bears even more fruition during the forthcoming 2010 Super League season. Away from the dominance of the big two, other teams have being steadily improving and sounding warning signals over battles that lie ahead next year. Clubs should as Huddersfield Giants and a blast from the past, Hull Kingston Rovers have both finished the current Super League campaign on highs after putting in some impressive performances, with the former finishing a very respectable third in the final table, with the latter tucked in behind in fourth place. Elsewhere and the Warrington Wolves have also finally shown some of their potential to again set out their stall for the new campaign.
Super League Grand Final Marks Culmination Of 2009 Season
Effectively the last game of the current European Super League's domestic campaign, the XIV Super League Grand Final is a culmination of a series of play-offs that have been decided by club's final positioning once the conventional weekly rounds of seasonal competition have run their course. This more dramatic use of a play-off structure and scenario harks back to rugby league's traditional roots, and came into modern day Super League effect as of 1998, where on Saturday the 24th October that year Old Trafford staged the inaugural Grand Final fixture between this year's combatant Leeds Rhinos and the Wigan Warriors.
There's a lot of local rivalry between the majority of the rugby league teams that comprise the Super League, thanks in no small part to club representation nine times out of ten emerging from the game's typical North West power-base, with Yorkshire and Lancashire providing the nucleus of each successive season's teams; or at least those with the strongest chance of reaching the Grand Final. During the present 2009 Rugby League Super League campaign the following predominantly North West clubs have faced each other in weekly competition format with the express intention of reaching the Grand Final. Bradford Bulls, Wigan Warriors, Castleford Tigers, Warrington Wolves, Huddersfield Giants, Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, Leeds Rhinos, Salford City Reds and St Helens, alongside those clubs from outside this catchment area that characterises the game of rugby league like Catalan Dragons, Celtic Crusaders, Harlequins, Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers. Even glancing at teams that have appeared and disappeared in previous Super League years since its inception in the late 1990s illustrates its strong North West roots as Halifax Blue Sox, Leigh Centurians, Oldham Bears, Sheffield Eagles, Widnes Vikings and Workington Town have all figured at some point previously.