After a rip-roaring start the Aviva Premiership enters its second round of action with plenty of exciting match-ups here are my best bets for the weekends games on BT Sport.
Exeter Chiefs v Leicester Tigers (BT Sport Saturday 3.15pm)
Exeter and Leicester both made promising starts to their campaigns with victories over London Welsh and Newcastle respectively. The Chiefs decimated newly promoted Welsh 52-0, while a Vereniki Goneva hat-trick helped the Tigers to a 36-17 win.
Leicester have had the upper hand over the Chiefs in recent times with four consecutive victories by an average of 9.25 points. Which makes the Tigers handicap mark of -3 very attractive. Richard Cockerill has brought England trio Antony Allen, Matthew Tait and Geoff Parling back into the side and the power throughout the side may just be too much for the Chiefs to handle. While they were impressive against London Welsh it would be unwise to read too much into that result as the new boys looked well below average.
Manu Tuilagi opened the scoring in the corresponding fixture last season after just three minutes, and the powerful English centre can make his presence felt again this weekend against the talented but inexperienced duo of Sam Hill and Henry Slade. In a game that I expect to be open it is worth taking a punt on Logovii Munipola to score at anytime, like Tuilagi he scored in this fixture last season and is a nice price to do so again.
Best Bets
Leicester -3 10/11 (Bet365) 3pt win
Manu Tuilagi to score first 14/1 (Paddy Power) 1pt win
Logovii Mulipola to score a try 8/1 (Sky Bet) 1pt win
London Wasps v Northampton Saints (BT Sport Sunday 2.00pm)
Wasps were only denied an opening day victory over by a controversial late try by David Strettle. The replays seemed to suggest that Strettle knocked the ball on whilst scoring, but the TMO awarded the try and Dai Young's side were left frustrated by a 34-28 loss. This weekend they welcome the league champions who were uber impressive in their victory over Gloucester, they showed no signs of early season rust and had the game sewn up just after the interval and ran out 53-6 winners.
The hosts haven't registered a victory over the Saints since October 2009 losing by an average of 19 points. But the past two games at Adams Park have both been settled by just two points and with this Wasps side rapidly improving this could become a tighter game than many believe. I still expect Northampton to have just too much for the home side but the half-time/full-time market is good value.
Luther Burrell scored twice on the opening night of the season and looks good value to cross the line again. With Wasps likely to focus a lot of their energy on stopping the gigantic George North, there should be more space in midfield for Burrell to expose. Another player who I fancy to score is Wasps back-row Ashley Johnson, the South African blindside is a player of explosive power and close to the line he is difficult to stop.
Best Bets
Northampton HT-FT evens (Coral) 2pt win
Luther Burrell to score first 18/1 (Paddy Power) 1pt win
Ashley Johnson to score a try 9/2 (Betfred) 1pt win
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