Rugby betting odds: Is 1/5 Saracens a license to print money?

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Saracens are rightly massive favourites to win the Championship and earn promotion back to the Gallagher Premiership at the first attempt.

Fair play to Paddy Power, at least they’ve taken an interest in the RFU Championship and created a book for the 2020/21 season.

That’s more than can be said for the RFU who, a mere three days before the season starts, have failed to upload the fixtures onto the fixture/results section of the division’s so-called dedicated website.

No prizes for guessing who heads the betting. Saracens are quoted at 1/5, and rightly so, given the relegated team bounces straight back up nine times out of 10 and they still have a host of stars that they can still call upon.

The performance of Sarries’ fringe players and youngsters in the recent Trailfinders Cup, however, will give the opposition hope that they can give the men in black a bloody nose before all their England stars become available again, and a trip to Cornish Pirates is not an easy first-up fixture.

Pirates finished third in the truncated  2019/20 season and the Mennaye Field, right next to the sea, has been known to be a graveyard for fancied teams before.

If Sarries slip up there, in front of the national press, who are planning to descend on the Duchy en masse, they can only really afford one more defeat to be sure of making the home-and-away play-off final on 12 and 19 June.

Little margin for error

The 10-game season allows little margin for error but the league’s organisers have mitigated against COVID-19 coming into play by stipulating that any postponed fixtures will be played on one of the three reserve weekends, rather than give the unaffected team a 28-0 win.

Had that not been the case, the odds on Ealing Trailfinders at 7/2 would have been very attractive.

Ealing won the Trailfinders Cup and have assembled their best-ever squad. Money is no option to them, a bit like Saracens, and they are stacked with Premiership experience, from Guy Thompson in the pack to Charlie Walker out wide.

Any outcome other than a Sarries v Ealing final will be a major shock. However, the odds on the rest are out of kilter if you fancy a very modest speculative bet. 

Incredibly, Doncaster Knights, one of the few full-time teams left in the league, are rank outsiders at 250/1. Part-timers Ampthill are 150/1! How can this be so? Then again, the Championship is a funny old league at the best of times!

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