With eight rounds of the 2013 AFL season to go now is a great time to take a look at a futures betting market such as the Coleman Medal. Check out our analysis of the betting market prior to Round 16 and before you bet, read our 2013 Coleman Medal betting preview and tips.
Some of the most competitive odds for the 2013 Coleman Medal currently seem to be over at Sportsbet. Of course, always check across many sports books to find the best odds you can, but at the moment we will be looking at the odds on offer a Sportsbet.
Coleman Medal odds at Sportsbet prior to Round 16
As you can see above, right now it is the West Coast Eagles’ Josh Kennedy who is the favourite to take down the Coleman Medal and arguably rightfully so. After all, Kennedy is currently leading the race with 45 goals, while second favourite, the Tiger’s Jack Riewoldt, trails on 42 goals. Next in line in the betting is the Hawk’s Jarryd Roughead, with his goal tally equal to Riewoldt’s. Let’s check out the top ten in the goal kicking below.
Top Ten Goal Kickers (prior to round 16)
Player Name - Total Goals (Ave. per game)
Josh J. Kennedy - 45 (3.5)
Jack Riewoldt - 42 (3)
Jarryd Roughead - 42 (3)
Travis Cloke - 41 (3.2)
Lindsay Thomas - 39 (3)
Lance Franklin - 38 (2.7)
Jeremy Cameron - 36 (2.8)
Tom Hawkins - 34 (2.6)
Nick Riewoldt - 34 (2.6)
Drew Petrie - 31 (2.2)
The way we, and most of the public, see it, the 2013 Coleman Medal is a five horse race between Josh Kennedy, Jack Riewoldt, Jarryd Roughead, Travis Cloke and Lance Franlklin. North Melbourne’s Lindsay Thomas and Geelong’s Tom Hawkins are smokey chances that may show some value. We are going to take a look at each of these players in some detail to help with your 2013 Coleman Medal betting decisions.
Remaining Opponents: Fremantle, Sydney, Western Bulldogs, Gold Coast Suns, Essendon, Geelong, Collingwood, Adelaide Crows.
Josh Kennedy is the Coleman Medal favourite and deservedly so. Kennedy has kicked bags of five goals on five occasions and four goals on four other occasions. Only one game in 2013 saw Kennedy not register a goal on the scoreboard. On these stats, and if you try not to think about his disgusting infamous little waddle in the lead up to his kick, Kennedy at $3.25 is seemingly value. The only real problem with Kennedy is that he hasn’t really proven that he can kick a big bag of goals of seven or more like Jack Reiwoldt or Buddy, but with those guys not really lighting games on fire, Kennedy’s consistency is looking good to get him over the line. Another slight stat against Kennedy is the fact that he has quite a tough run home, playing only tough teams except for the terrible Western Bulldogs and the ever-improving Gold Coast Suns. It’s a good thing one of those teams is the Bulldogs though as he kicked four goals against them earlier this year and booted a massive bag of 10 against them in 2012.
Verdict: Consistency is on Josh Kennedy’s side and he is having the year of his career as he is looking set to better his record of 59 goals in the 2011 season. While Jack Reiwoldt and Jarryd Roughead are real threats, if Kennedy stays consistent in the next couple of weeks and then has another cracker against the Bulldogs, you won’t be able to get him at $3.25 again this year. However, be weary of quite a tough run home in terms of his opponents.
Projected season goal total: 67 - 75 goals
Remaining Opponents: Gold Coast Suns, Fremantle, Sydney, Hawthorn, Brisbane, Carlton, GWS, Essendon
Jack Riewoldt was the winner of the Coleman Medal in both 2012 and 2010. He and Buddy Franklin are the only two-time winners of the Coleman medal still playing in the AFL. Riewoldt is having a great year. Apart from kicking zero goals in round 1, Riewoldt has kicked at least one goal in each of the other 13 games he has played in 2013. One of the stats against Reiwoldt is that hasn’t managed to kick big bags on multiple occasions, only kicking four more goals three times, while Kennedy has kicked four or more goals nine times. However, one of those games saw Reiwoldt kick seven goals, something which Kennedy hasn’t been able to do. Riewoldt has upcoming games against weaker opposition such as the Gold Coast Suns, Brisbane and GWS, but also plays against Fremantle and Carlton, both of which he has failed to kick goals against over the past two years, kicking an accumulative seven goals over six games against these two teams.
Verdict: While Riewoldt is showing similar consistency, in terms of kicking at least one goal a game, as last year when he won the Coleman, he simply isn’t kicking big bags of goals. In saying that, with Riewoldt only three goals off the pace and the fact that he is easily the best placed pure goal-kicking player in contention, $3.75 could be value. Gold Coast Suns this coming week, so now could be the time to get on him.
Projected season goal total: 66- 72 goals
Remaining Opponents: Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, Essendon, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood, Kangaroos, Sydney.
Jarryd Roughead has been crushing in 2013. In many ways he has proven that Hawthorn would be fine without Lance Franklin if Buddy chose to follow the money and make the move to somewhere like the GWS. Forgetting his injury ridden year in 2011, last year saw Roughead kicked 41 goals. He has already bettered that amount with eight games to go this year and if he keeps up his current pace he will kick well over 60 goals and his second largest season tally since he kicked 75 in 2008. One of the most impressive stats of Roughead’s 2013 – and something which neither Josh Kennedy or Jack Reiwoldt can boast about – is the fact Roughead has kicked at least one goal in every game he has played this year. Roughead has also kicked four or more goals on six occasions, including two bags of five goals. This stat has Reiwoldt covered and isn’t far behind Kennedy. Another big factor to look at with Roughead is that he has kicked 50% of his total goals this year in the last six games. He is just starting to heat up! Roughead has some of the weaker opponents in the next two weeks facing Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs, before having a tougher tail end of the season. However, Roughead hasn’t had too much trouble against his upcoming opponents that he has already played, kicking three against Collingwood in round 3 and four against Sydney in round 7.
Verdict: Roughead has put the injury troubles of 2011 behind him and following a solid 2012, has shown that he is back to playing some of the best football of his career. On current form he should be paying a similar amount to Jack Riewoldt. Very attractive prospect, especially while you can get him at $5.
Projected season goal total: 68-75 goals
Remaining Opponents: Adelaide, Gold Coast, GWS, Essendon, Sydney, Hawthorn, West Coast, Nth Melbourne.
Travis Cloke is a frustrating player. Take games like round 6 against St Kilda where he kicked 5 goals, 4 behinds. What about round 7? Zero goals, 4 behinds. In round 11 against Melbourne he kicked 3 goals, 3 behinds. The list goes on. It happens all the time. Cloke could very easily be leading the 2013 Coleman Medal race right now, but the fact remains the he isn’t. Last week showed some of Cloke’s magic when he kicked 5 goals against Carlton and that’s why he has been backed in a couple of dollars to be paying less than Buddy Franklin who sits on the same amount of goals. In addition to his horrid accuracy as outlined above, twice in 2012 Cloke failed to kick goals. When Cloke does kick goals though, he loves to kick a bag, booting at least five on four occasions, including 7 against Richmond in round 4. One of the best stats in Cloke’s favour is the fact he has been kicking much straighter during the late half of the season, kicking 19 goals, 9 behinds in the last six games, as opposed to 22 goals, 23 behinds in the seven games prior to that. He’s certainly using the ball better and knows how to get his hands on the pill. Still to play Gold Coast and GWS this year, having kicked 4 goals against the Suns in 2012 and 6 goals against GWS in 2012.
Verdict: Despite being four goals off the pace, Travis Cloke knows how to get his hands on the pill and is still one of the real chances to take down the Coleman Medal. If he can keep his accuracy under wraps, which seems to be improving over the last few weeks, Cloke shows plenty of value at $6.50, especially with the Pies playing Gold Coast and GWS in upcoming weeks.
Projected season goal total: 60-70 goals
Remaining Opponents: Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, Essendon, Richmond, St Kilda, Collingwood, Kangaroos, Sydney.
As you can see in the betting markets the Hawks’ gun Lance Franklin is equal fourth favourite in the betting despite being sixth in total goals kicked, with 38 – seven goals behind leader Kennedy. Seven goals is one good game for Franklin and many people would be happy to take Franklin at $7 and hope to see Buddy come out with a bag of ten goals in one game. However, he simply hasn’t shown he can kick goals in 2013 like he has in past years. Franklin has only kicked five goals or more on one occasion, kicking five against the Gold Coast Suns in round 9. Buddy only kicked four goals on four occasions – two of which were early in the year - and has twice kicked zero goals. There’s no doubt he is having a bad year. We aren’t going to speculate whether or not all the talk about his contract has affected Buddy, but it’s pretty obvious Buddy isn’t in the form that saw him kick 113 goals in 2008 and even 69 like last year. However, there aren’t many times in any season of football that Buddy will be paying $7 for the Coleman medal. Certainly an interesting one.
Verdict: By his usual standards, Buddy isn’t having a great year. I would suggest staying away from betting on Buddy on his current form in 2013. One thing punters could do is take Buddy at $7 and with games against weaker defensive teams such as Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs in the next two weeks, hope that he closes his gap and then you could lay him at a sports betting exchange such as Betfair to lock in a small profit. As long as Buddy stays within reach of the Coleman it’s unlikely he will drift much further than $7, so this isn’t too risky, just make sure to jump off him with at least a few games to go… Unless of course he moves into an unlikely dominating lead, then let it ride and rake in the cash!
Projected season goal total: 58-70 goals
Smokey Chances
The 2013 Coleman Medal is very likely to be taken down by one of the above players, but there are always those smokey chances at a come from behind victory. At the moment these chances seem to be Lindsay Thomas and Tom Hawkins. Both of these players will obviously need to have some massive games during the final eight rounds to stand a chance, but if they do, at the very least their prices will come in and you can lay them off at a betting exchange like Betfair.
LindsayThomas – 39 goals ($31): Thomas is only out to paying such a large amount due to his current suspension. He should be back in round 17 though and has proven he can kick plenty of goals in 2013. Only on two occasions has Thomas failed to kick a goal this year and has kicked at least 4 goals on six occasions. Unfortunately Thomas will miss this week’s game against the weak Brisbane Lions, but will definitely be back in the saddle against Melbourne in round 18. If he can kick a bag there and maintain his consistency throughout the rest of the year, then he is a small chance at being in the mix.
Tom Hawkins – 34 goals ($21): With only 34 goals on his tally, Tom Hawkins should be paying more than $21. Arguably he should be paying more than the currently suspended Lindsey Thomas. The reason Hawkins is so short is because of Geelong’s draw for the rest of the year. The Cats play Melbourne this week, before playing weak teams like St Kilda, Port Adelaide and the Brisbane Lions before the season is over. I would personally stay away from Hawkins, but if he does manage to kick a big bag against Melbourne this week, then his price will be cut in half. Hawkins should shorten in price if he kicks five or more though, which is definitely possible against the Dees, so would be easy enough to lay off at a betting exchange. However, tread with caution.
Take note: The above tip is simply the author’s opinion, so bet at your own risk and always bet responsibly. Happy punting!
