Heineken Cup preview – Clermont to dominate

The Heineken Cup final takes centre stage on Saturday with first time finalists Clermont Auvergne and Toulon meeting in Dublin to see who will be crowned champions of Europe. Whoever goes on to lift the cup will become only the third French winner of the coveted silverware.

Clermont go into the final as the 4/7 favourites to lift the cup and with them having created a slice of tournament history by winning all nine matches on route to Dublin, Vern Cotter’s team have been very well supported to takes Saturday’s big prize.

They ran out clear winners of Pool 5, scoring a total of 213 points and conceding only 64 and then beat Montpellier 36-14 in the quarter-finals and former double champions Munster 16-10 in the semi-finals.

Toulon on the other hand has a much tricky route to the final, but in Jonny Wilkinson the 2011-12 Top 14 runners-up have a player that can kick them to victory against any team. It’s 13/10 for Toulon to bring an end of Clermont’s dominance of this tournament this year and 10/11 they win with a handicap start of four points.

If you are looking for some better value, the half-time/full-time betting sees Clermont priced up at 11/10 to be leading at HT/FT of the match. It’s 6/4 that the first scoring play is a Toulon penalty and 4/5 for the second half to contain more points than the first.

The winning margin betting also offers from great betting opportunities with Clermont 5/4 to win by 1 to 12 points, Toulon 2/1 to win by 1 to 12 points and the tie priced up at 20/1.

Going into the final, it’s hard to look past a victory for Clermont, but one thing you can expect is a very tight game and that is represented in the handicap and winning margin betting.