NRL - Round Eight Preview

The Titans continued their impressive start to the season with a solid win over the New Zealand Warriors. What makes the Titans such an inspirational story is that they have built a team around young kids and recycled stars. It's amazing what can be achieved with nothing more than determination and will to succeed in a competition dominated by well established playing lists and franchises.

Discarded champion players such as Bailey and Prince have blended with players such as Rogers who returned to League after a stint in rugby. The Titans picked up stars that were, through injury or age, on the scrap heap and have turned them around through support and most importantly belief. When you combine that with new super stars like Lefranchi you get an unlikely combination that has defied the odds to lead the competition nearing the half way mark of the year. Coach Cartwright would hardly believe his luck, but he should be proud as he has been the gel that has been successful in launching the Titans in the hungry for success Gold Coast area.

This week we see some interesting match ups as players look towards the representative season. You have to be very careful over the next few months when it comes to betting as many players will be unavailable or will miss through injury, so sometimes the bet of the century might not be as good as it appears.

Friday night sees the traditional City v Country game. This is without doubt the most pointless game on the rugby league calendar. When sanity prevails this should be scrapped at the end of this year for good. The Country side seems more experienced but with a coach like Laurie Daley, god only knows how they will fair. The City side looks pretty strong, is well coached and I will be taking them at the line.

In the NRL there is a split round but I like the look of a few games. The Warriors would be my bet of the round and should easily account for the Raiders over in Auckland. My other selections are the Titans, Eels, Broncos and Cowboys.

Good luck and good punting and remember Sportsbet has an excellent range of betting on all rugby league games.

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