We’ll be bringing you a closer look, over the next few weeks as the anticipation grows for the start of the season, at the men who are in the running for the Brownlow Medal – the guys who will be looking to follow Matthew Priddis into the record books. The man with the shortest odds would likely have to make extra room in the trophy cabinet – if Gary Ablett Jr. can claim another Brownlow Medal, it will be his third, which will equal the best effort of any AFL player in the history of the medal. A third Brownlow would make Ablett one of the modern greats – the last time a third Medal was picked up was back in the seventies!

So we’ll be taking a closer look at Ablett going into the 2015 season, to see if he’s going to offer value at $5.00 to make history, and also in the following weeks we’ll be looking at the men who will be thinking of denying him the pleasure. Plus we’ll have all the AFL odds and more, as usual…

There’s little doubt that Johnston is going to be in the mix – he’s a genuine flyer, and the Souths create plenty for him to capitalise on. But there will be lots of tries in the 2015 season, and there are some guys with a real chance of chalking up more than the favourite. Manly’s Peta Hiku stands as the second favourite, with odds of $15.00 beside his name, and he splits the two Souths men in the most likely three – Greg Inglis is a $17.00 bet and he might be value at that price, too. Beyond those three, look out for a trio of Roosters who might well be strong choices: Daniel Tupou, Michael Jennings and Blake Ferguson are all real chances to finish the 2015 campaign with the NRL’s biggest tally of tries. It helps all of those guys that they will be involved in winning sides more often than not, and you can be sure that both the Roosters and the Rabbitohs will be those sides again this season. We’ve got all the NRL odds you need for their head-to-head fixtures, as well as all those great markets on offer, including the top tryscorer markets!

But Australia vs England and New Zealand vs Sri Lanka aren’t the only treats in store for Cricket fans this weekend. It’s going to be a busy month or so as the World Cup unfolds for your viewing pleasure, and this first weekend is massively important for all the teams hoping to still be involved when the Semi-Finals and Finals are being contested. On Sunday, South Africa have the sort of opening fixture that you’d pick as a coach – but they will no doubt be treating their game against Zimbabwe with the upmost respect. South Africa understandably go in as the favourites, with very short odds of $1.02, but then they’re in the mix as one of the favourites for the tournament, and they’ll be looking for the perfect start to their World Cup. Even without beating South Africa, Zimbabwe can upset their plans, but are they a chance to cause and upset at odds of $13.00?

In contrast to South Africa, both India and Pakistan have a massive first game of the 2015 World Cup. India-Pakistan fixtures are always big noise, and the World Cup just adds spice, of course. Even better for the neutral, both teams are coming into this tournament without much in the way of form, and without necessarily knowing what their best eleven looks like. You can see from the Cricket odds we’ve got for you that it’s India who will be the $1.50 favourites, but they’ll be under pressure…

Which means that first up are the Brisbane Broncos, who square off against the Rabbitohs in the season opener, and who will be looking to make good on early odds of $1.80, ahead of the $2.00 we’re currently seeing for the Souths on Sportsbet. One of the things in their favour is likely to be an ability to create tries from more than one source, and that’s reflected in the NRL odds for their top tryscorer – on the shortest odds, $4.00 as they stand at the moment, you’ve got your choice of three men, and they’re all going to be right in the running (barring extended time on the sidelines, of course).

The first of them is Daniel Vidot, who last season was right up amongst the players with the most metres made to their name. The Broncos used him as a battering ram last year, and he made a good one, to his credit, but the buzz coming from the training camp is that he’s looking leaner and quicker, which could translate into more tries for him in 2015. With him on odds of $4.00 are new star signing Anthony Milford and speedster Dale Copley. Copley is a man who is growing into his Broncos shirt with every season, and his game is sharpening at the same time. Milford, meanwhile, will be under a degree of pressure to deliver, but should benefit from a fruitful partnership with the impressive Ben Hunt.

Those three are on the same odds of $21.00 to be the league’s top tryscorer, too, in case you were wondering, and you’d think that if that trio can find try-scoring form, then the Broncos are going to be more than a handful!

The list of past Coleman Medal winners reads like a who’s who of AFL super-stars. Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin has three on his mantelpiece, and he’s the man with the shortest odds to win it in 2015, $4.25 as of right now. With this being one of the most interesting markets going for the coming AFL season (and one of our favourites to bet on and to keep track of, by the way), we’re going to be devoting some time and some space to looking at the key contenders in a bit more detail. And the 2015 season could be a compelling contest in store for the Coleman Medal, too. Before a ball has been kicked, there are three guys with odds shorter than $10 next to their names on Sportsbet. Franklin we’ve mentioned, but Roughead, Riewoldt and Kennedy aren’t going to let him just have it by any means!

So make sure you check back in with us over the next few weeks for all the usual AFL odds (which you can get just by hitting the link there), plus a closer look at those Coleman Medal contenders and more…

We haven’t seen any Cricket odds at our favourite online betting sites that feature engagements, but they seem to have plenty on offer for you for the World Cup – and that includes for the opening game. Australia understandably go in as the favourites for this one, with odds of $1.33 as of right now on Sportsbet. They’re going to be tough to beat on home soil, we reckon, and they’re the tournament favourites, too, so you can see what the bookies think of the men in green and gold ahead of the first game. Looking at the recent form of Steve Smith, David Warner, Mitchell Johnson and Mitchell Stark, you can see where they’ve got the impression that it’s Australia’s World Cup to lose.

England, though, might represent value over the course of the tournament. They’re facing some long odds in the first game – they’ve got $3.25 next to their name at the moment – but they have some serious power in their middle-order batting, an in-form Ian Bell at the top of the innings, and in James Anderson, one of the most skilful bowlers in the world. If you don’t fancy them in the opener, then you might want to keep an eye out for them as the tournament goes on – we’ll of course be bringing you a smattering of news and all the Cricket odds you’ll need as things progress…

So today we’re talking about Steve Johnson, who emphatically will be appearing for the Cats in their 2015 campaign, even in spite of a potentially lucrative offer of a move to GWS in the off season. Rather brilliantly, we think, he happened to overlook the offer from the Giants whilst he was on holiday, but it sounds like he’s a committed Geelong man, and not out of loyalty alone, but because he’s in search of another flag win with them: ‘I really didn’t get a good chance to consider it because I was overseas on a golf trip and I think it was a day or two before the (trade) deadline finished. At the end of the day, my initial reaction was that I believed I had a really good opportunity to play in a premiership again next season at Geelong and that’s pretty much as far as I considered it. I was flattered by the offer from GWS to come up there for however long it was, but I’m certainly happy where I am at the moment. It probably wasn’t the time for me to really look at that sort of thing.’

What he will be looking at is getting himself ready for the new season, and that will mean managing his fitness quite carefully – especially a foot injury that is a risk of a recurrence, and that has been troubling him in recent weeks: ‘it was just a little bit of bone stress, it’s not even really stress. I had bone stress beforehand and it healed up pretty well over the off-season. I’ve been doing a lot of running (this pre-season) and I came in one morning and my foot was a tiny bit sore and they took the precautionary approach by saying ‘stay off it for a week’ and sent me to the Gold Coast.’

Which gives you an idea of how the management at Geelong are going to handle Johnson, who brings valuable experience to their roster, and who could be a key man in helping them overcome AFL odds of $14.00 to win the 2015 premiership. They’re going to handle him with lots of holidays, it sounds like. Nice work if you can get it…

It was the Rabbitohs who took the title in 2015, and it was on the back of an impressive display, you have to say. It’s probably bold to predict that the Souths will go into the new season firing on all cylinders on the strength of a Nines tournament, but there were some very encouraging signs for their fans to relish. They will be the outsiders in their first game – against the Broncos on March 5th – but they look like they will go in with real confidence, too, so that could be worth a look.

Elsewhere in the NRL odds that are waiting for you at the end of the link there, have a bit of a look at the Sharks. Again we caution that the Nines aren’t necessarily the most reliable guide, but again there were encouraging signs of good things to come from Cronulla. The Sharks are a $21.00 bet to make 2015 a winning year, and that’s probably ambitious even for their more dedicated fans, but they will want to make gains in the coming season, and the Nines were a step in the right direction…

The first two games of the 2015 World Cup promise to be absolute belters. One of them is a replay of the recent tri-nations series between England and tournament favourites Australia, and we’ll certainly be coming back to that in these pages before the 14th. The other is another potential cracker, between New Zealand and Sri Lanka, who’ve recently been knocking chunks out of each other in Tests, T20s and ODIs, and who are both real contenders for the World Cup itself.

The Kiwis will carry the favourites tag in to their tournament opener, with odds of $1.44 beside their name on Sportsbet right now. That’s probably fair, with Kane Williamson and Brendan McCullum both pretty high on the list of likeliest candidates to top score in the tournament, and the New Zealand pacemen very much on song. Sri Lanka, mind you, will bring a line-up that’s itself bristling with quality, both in the batting and the bowling. They know a thing or two about getting to the business end of a World Cup, too – and even about winning it.

So you’d possibly be a brave man to call this one, which could be a very close thing. Feel free to have a look over the Cricket Odds we’ve got for you for the whole tournament by clicking the link – there could be better value elsewhere. Of course, if you’ve got a feeling about the opening game, then we’re not going to stand in your way…

There was criticism from no shortage of directions last year for the Dragons front men, and their bulk is still being questioned as we head towards the start of the 2015 campaign. The word from inside the camp, though, is bullish. Here’s Gareth Widdop: ‘our forwards probably copped a bit of flak last year. I know for a fact it probably hurts them. We have certainly worked really hard on our defence up the middle. They are confident in their ability and I am confident in them as well. If those blokes can put their best foot forward and get a start then we won’t be so small any more. They [the Rabbitohs] are one of the bigger packs in the game and if we can contain them on the weekend then that’s a good stepping stone.’

Josh Dugan agrees, and he was keen to highlight the other aspects that he thinks the Dragons forwards bring to the party, too: ‘everyone says how small we are but I think we are one of the most mobile packs in the game and our forwards can also ball play. I don’t think there isn’t one of them that couldn’t catch and pass or draw and pass if it came down to it. Not everything is a negative.’

Time will tell, of course, but we’ve got all the NRL odds for this one waiting for you. The Rabbitohs go in as favourites, with odds of $1.50, but if the Dragons can beat odds of $2.60 and win it, the critics will be quieter for a week or two…