After last weekend’s disastrous excursion into the world of sports betting I am relieved that there are no RSA Leinster Open Competitions D1 matches tomorrow for me to lose money on. The last bet I can remember making with the bookies before then was in the Grand National around 1960 [my grand mother did the honours] when I choose Team Spirit which romped home to victory and gave me a good return on my 6d. Unfortunately I gave it all back last weekend betting on Merrion to win in The Hills [I really should have known better], Phoenix to win in the Park [the odds were good it was always a long shot], and North County to win in YMCA. They say the bookies always get their money back – but at least in this case they had to wait 50 years.
So no bets tomorrow and I will have to be more careful with my €50 investment for the season which is now worth €43 [counting the free bet].
With the RSA Irish Senior and National Cups on tomorrow there is only one RSA Open D2 match the result of which I can get wrong. Dublin University play Merrion II in College Park and it may prove an interesting game if for no other reason than the appearance in DU colours of one George Dockrell.
Since DU beat Malahide and Malahide beat Merrion II, form would suggest that this is no contest [even without the appearance of GD]. But as I found out last weekend predicting the results of cricket matches is far from an exact science. Still Trinity must be strong favourites to take the double points.
The teams for the match in College Park, starting at 12.30 are as follows:
Trinity: H Pike, Richard Forrest, J Tasman-Jones, Mohammed Amir Anwar, T Bouch, Dhruv Kapoor, G H Dockrell, C J Hoey, N Delany, W Verwoerd and R Walsh.
Merrion II: K Beasley, A Parkinson, N Brown, C O’Donoghue, C Allwright,, P Tice, N Rowe, R Ensor, H Kennedy, T Wijesundera, A Raghavan.