This weekend sees the conclusion of the provincial warm-up competitions and yet again they have provided the punters with lots to ponder.
We also have the return of the All-Ireland club hurling and football championships over the weekend, which sets us up very nicely to pick up on a bit of value.
The game of the weekend sees Tyrone and Derry lock horns for the third time already this season and the bookies have yet again installed Tyrone as warm 4/7 favourites and Derry at a plucky 7/4.
As with all games at this time of the year team news is key and having taken a look at both sides team sheets, a number of conclusions can be drawn.
Derry like the last meeting in the group stages have named their strongest line out available, with their forward line again looking very potent. Mickey Harte has again named an experimental team and has continued to show considerable faith in his new players, but when things were going wrong against Derry he quickly brought in the cavalry.
That is why I believe that backing Derry to be winning at half time and Tyrone to be winning at full time, like we tipped a number of weeks ago could come up trumps again.
This time it is best priced with Ladbrokes at a massive 5/1, but our NAP this weekend in order to play it a bit safer is Derry to be winning at half time at 7/4 with Ladbrokes.
I believe like their last meeting Derry will be on top on the first half as they will be very anxious to make up for surrendering their nine point advantage last time out, and their team is considerably more experienced than Tyrone's.
Overall, this should be a cracking contest and word is that the Ulster Council are expecting around 10,000 people to attend.
Our second game in focus this weekend includes our old friends Loughinisland who you may have noticed have provided this column a number of successful bets this year. They are due to take on Mayo champs Hollymount-Carramore who recently amalgamated in 2011.
As I have stated in this column many times Loughinisland are a mightily impressive outfit who would give many senior teams across Ireland a very competitive game, and they have beat some incredibly good teams along their way to capturing the Ulster crown.
Hollymount-Carramore, who side includes All-Ireland minor winning captain Stephen Coen, showed considerable resolve in capturing their Connacht crown, they just about beat the Galway champs in the final winning on a score line 0-9 to 0-8.
They also experienced huge trouble in the semi-final where they scraped past Letrim champions Melvin Gaels after extra time.
Although kudos must be given for getting the wins on these occasions, I just believe that Loughinisland would not have experienced the same trouble in defeating that opposition and, on top of that, Ulster intermediate sides have a very steady record in this competition.
The 2/1 offered by Paddy Power for Loughinisland to win half time and at full time looks very tempting. But, again to play it safe, I'm going to stick with Loughinisland to win at 4/5 also with Powers.
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