October 15: Weekend fancies

Premier League football, Heineken Cup rugby and horse racing at Cheltenham and Cork are the subjects of the latest edition of the weekend fancies.

By Conor Hogan, William Nestor and Conor Heneghan

Weekend Patent

Fulham find themselves in the unusual position of being one of only two unbeaten teams in the Premier League – and yet they are only in a solid if unspectacular 10th place. Their only win of the season came against Wolves, but even that was only after an injury time goal. Every other result has been a draw, and when a team’s draw percentage is 86 percent, it doesn’t take a genius to usually back a share of the spoils.

They’ll be facing Tottenham, not necessarily the most consistent team in the world, and Harry Redknapp would probably be reasonably satisfied with a point.

The odds on a draw are 11/5, which is generous in anybody’s language.

Click here for five Premier League things to look out for this weekend.

A win looks on the cards for RORY’S SISTER at Cork on Saturday after two good place finishes in his last couple of runs.

The nine-year-old mare knows her way around this course, having won here back in 2005 for Jim Larkin’s stable.

Roger Loughran takes the mount on the likely favourite for the 3.20 Handicap Hurdle over 2m 6f and at 11/4 she looks a snip.

The card at Cheltenham on Saturday will have National Hunt followers’ mouths watering with some top jumpers in action at the famous track.

The 3.50 Royal Gloucestershire Hussars Novices' Chase (Class 2) will see eight highly competitive runners going to post and we feel Nigel Twiston-Davies’ BILLIE MAGERN will take the big money here.

He’s bidding for five on the trot and has handled various trips successfully, including this distance of 3m.

Paddy Brennan has the ride and all going to plan he should dot up at around 5/1.

A €3 patent (total outlay €21) will return just over €400.

Break the Bookie

In Bolton’s clash with Stoke, Johan Elmander and Kenwyne Jones are both well priced to get the first goal. The big Swede is one of the most improved strikers in the Premier League, while Jones seems to have found his promised land at Stoke, where his heading ability is being utilised to its absolute maximum.

We’ve flipped a coin and it landed on Kenwyne Jones, who is 7/1.

Munster take on Toulon this weekend at Thomond Park, having rescued a bonus point at the death against London Irish last Saturday evening. Keith Earls returned to the starting line-up against the Exiles and seemed to be showing very few ill-effects from his long injury lay off. Munster look a good bet to get back to winning ways this weekend and we think Earls could get the ball rolling with the first try of the afternoon.

At 11/1, he’s pretty good value to do so.

Click here for JOE’s weekend European Rugby preview.

We have another Heineken Cup rugby bet to finish off this weekend’s punts and it concerns Leinster’s clash with Saracens on Saturday evening. Like Keith Earls, Luke Fitzgerald has eased back into action after a long lay-off and he will show his versatility this weekend at outside centre against Saracens in the absence of Brian O’Driscoll.

Against a doughty Sarries side, tries won’t be easy to come by, but Fitzgerald is as likely as any to be the first to touch down at Wembley Stadium.

Chance your arm on cool hand Luke Fitzgerald to score the first try of the game at 16/1.

A tenner on the above three bets will return a little over €16,300, which is roughly about €1 for every time we heard Liverpool football club mentioned on Sky Sports News this week.