2/1 Leeds to beat Castleford?

A West Yorkshire derby is live on Thursday night rugby as Castleford make the short trip to Headingley to take on big rivals Leeds .

Unsurprisingly the Tigers are strong favourites at around 1/2 to win this , but their form has been a bit patchy over the last few weeks. A narrow win against Salford is sandwiched between heavy losses to Warrington and St Helens but surely Daryl Powell will fancy his sides chances at the bottom of the table Rhinos . Leeds have only won once this season and have lost both of their games so far at Headingley , to Wakefield and London , so it is hard to see anything other than an away win tonight .

Cas have to concede a 6 point start on the handicap and given they won by more than this at both Hull FC and London you have to think they’ll cover the handicap again , obviously Saints and Wire are a class above Leeds so you can’t really read too much into those defeats . The Tigers have put some big scores on Leeds in recent seasons and whilst this may be closer than some of them I still think it should be a comfortable 80 minutes for the Fords . David Furner’s side showed signs of improvement in France last week but they were abject at home to London the week before and were hammered by Wakefield in their 1st home game., the short turnaround from Perpignan could also hamper the home side .

An away win by around 11-15 points is about where I see this ending up in what is proving to be a dismal season for the 2017 Grand Final winners , the Rhinos seem to be performing better away from home with their sole success being at Salford . If you fancy Leeds to start well but their trip to Perpignan to catch up with them you can get 7/1 that Leeds are leading at half time and Cas to win at full time .

Eden at 7/1 and Handley at 10/1 head 1st try lists, Hurrell at 12/1 would be my pick , Moors looks big at 9/2 to score a try anytime in the game .

Mcshane is very short at 4/1 for man of the match , Liam Watts looks way too big at 25/1 but Trueman at 8/1 would be my pick in Tigers colours . As for the Rhinos , Hurrell looks the pick at 14/1 .

Warrington travel to Hull for Friday night rugby, as always please gamble responsibly .