NRL Odds: Panthers Make Poor Underdogs
September 25th, 2014 by TJ DilferWe’ve had an incredible NRL season, with some heart-straining games decided by just one, two or three points, and decided in the last few seconds, too. So we should have been ready for a finals series that gave us more of the same. That won’t have been any comfort to either Panthers fans or Bulldogs fans, as both their sides squeezed their way into the Preliminary Final they will contest on Saturday by a single point. The Panthers upset the Roosters by a point to earn themselves the week off last week, whilst the Bulldogs put a golden point on Manly to set up Saturday’s clash. A little look at the NRL odds for the second Preliminary Final will show you that it’s the Bulldogs who go in as the favourites, but there’s been plenty of pundits picking this one the other way, so it’s going to be an interesting one to bet on, and potentially another roller-coaster ride in store!
Both these sides have done incredibly well to get to this stage. The Bulldogs seem to have found their form at just about the right time – two wins in the finals series have given them the sort of momentum they just couldn’t find in the regular season, and they’ve found ways to win games, too. They’ll set out to test the Panthers defence to its limits, and they’ll be hoping that they can do justice to the favourites tag on Saturday: a Grand Final waits for Des Hasler and his men if they can.
But the Panthers won’t lie down by any means. This is a group of Penrith players who are used to the underdogs tag, and they either don’t know or don’t care that they’re the outsiders. Coping with what looked like a crippling list of injuries to key players at the tail-end of the regular season, the Panthers have just kept on finding ways to win games. They’ve still got injury worries, and they’ll be expecting a real onslaught from the Bulldogs, but they’ve been written off so many times this season that we can see a few pundits settling down to eat their hats when the Panthers guts their way into a 2014 Grand Final.
Either way, it looks like it could be incredibly close on Saturday night. It hardly seems like it will need it, but have a look at these NRL odds for a bet to spice things up!
- 2023
- 2022
- - June
- 2018
- 2017
- 2016
- 2015
- 2014
- 2013
- 2012
- 2011
- 2010
- 2009
- 2000