Pete’s Picks – Sunday’s Live GAA Games

on July 25, 2015 at 3:52 pm

Sometimes you see match-betting quotes and are taken aback by the odds you see before you.

Dublin v Waterford, Hurling, RTÉ, 2pm
Certainly, when this writer cast his eyes over the prices available with BoyleSports on this Dublin-Waterford All-Ireland SHC quarter-final encounter it led to one of those aforementioned moments.

Dublin, in short, are bizarrely overpriced at 12/5 to end the Déise’s Championship campaign.

That assertion is not necessarily based on what has gone on thus far this year – even though part of it could be as Ger Cunningham’s men would have contested the League final with Waterford, for instance, if they held their heads in the final quarter of the semi-final against Cork.

No, this theory is based more on which of the two sides has more scope for improvement for the remainder of the Championship.

And that, definitely, is Dublin.

Cunningham’s side were moments away from sending Galway through to the backdoor in the drawn Leinster quarter-final clash.

If the Metropolitans had held on in both of those particular games, for example, what way would they be perceived now?

The fact of the matter is they put themselves in position to win and have a habit of doing so.

Think of Dublin as a golfer that puts himself or herself into a position to win a tournament regularly over a period of time before finally crawling over the line to victory.

And that ‘victory’, a psychological release of sorts for Cunningham’s side, occurred in their defeat of Limerick.

Dublin hung in there to battle their way past the winning post in front.

And I expect them, with Danny Sutcliffe starring, to operate on a higher level again leaving Waterford stunned.

Pete’s Picks:
Dublin +4 @ 4/5
Dublin @ 12/5
Danny Sutcliffe RTÉ Man of the Match @ 16/1

Cork v Galway, Hurling, RTÉ, 4pm
Sifting through Galway’s season so far in numerical terms earlier this week, an odd statistic was derived from the figures.

Anthony Cunningham’s side have competed in nine matches throughout their League and Championship odyssey in 2015.

Remarkably, in seven of those nine games, 77% of their outings, Galway have totalled 20- or 21-point returns.

The only occasions the Tribesmen surpassed that ‘benchmark’ was in hammering both Dublin, in a replay – Galway registered 1-17 in the drawn tussle, and Laois in the provincial championship.

The westerners got the start dreams are made of in that aforementioned replay and with respect to the O’Moore County, for purposes of this exercise we will pass over the full-time scoreline from that tie.

Generally, though, Cunningham’s charges have not managed to post huge tallies on the scoreboards against top-tier sides.

Additionally, with Cork finally implementing a gameplan to enhance their defensive capabilities, this last-six clash might be lower scoring than the total match points line of 47.5 suggests.

With Mark Ellis as a sweeper Jimmy Barry-Murphy’s Leesiders generated 0-20 themselves as they overcame Clare.