Australia vs. South Africa Rugby Odds: Back the hosts to continue their good record at home to South Africa

It’s been an interesting start to the Rugby Championship, with the two most fancied teams in South Africa and New Zealand currently propping up third and fourth place in the mini-table after two games. This weekend’s matches mark the half way point of the southern hemisphere tournament, and in this preview we’ll be focusing on the Springboks’ visit to Australia.

Heading into matchday three, every team in the Championship has so far won and lost a single game. The South Africans defeated the All Blacks in their opener by 26 points to 10, but couldn’t replicate that last time out, losing 35-23. Australia had a shocking game previously, as Argentina recorded their biggest ever victory over the Wallabies, winning 48-17. The Aussies will hope to return to their opening form, where they beat the Pumas by 41 points to 26.

At the time of writing, the Australian team hasn’t been announced, but stay tuned as we’ll update the article with any changes to the starting XV as we get them.

For South Africa, there’s been two changes, with Faf de Klerk returning to take the scrum-half position, and Warrick Gelant replaces the injured Jessie Kriel over on the right wing.

So, with all the nitty gritty details sorted, we’ve drafted in our main jeans and sheaux enthusiast, @PeteMarsden_, to dive into the game, and come out with two tips.

For both of our bets for this game, we’re going against the favourites, and siding with the home side. This is due to the fact that South Africa haven’t won a game in Australia in nine years, and that the hosts have never lost at the Adelaide Oval.

The Aussies have also played South Africa on home turf as recently as last year, during the Rugby Championships, where they came out on top in both fixtures, and they have a favourable record in recent times against the Springboks, winning three of their last five Rugby Championship head-to-heads. The visitors are odds-on to win this game, so we’re siding with the home team to win, which is at a best price of 35/19 with SBK.

Moving onto our second selection, we’re looking at Australia to be winning at half-time and full-time on Saturday morning. This line landed in each of the Wallabies’ wins over South Africa in last year’s Rugby Championship.

With the pain of their embarrassing defeat to Argentina, the Aussies will look to get the home crowd on side, and put on a show as we edge closer to next year’s World Cup. South Africa may have a mental block when it comes to playing down under, which is shown by their dismal record there, and we’ve picked out a best price of 12/5 for the home side to secure the double result.

Best of luck if you’re following any of these bets, and please remember to gamble responsibly.