Honourable draw for Rams

Just back from the big match at Pride Park this evening with Derby forcing an honourable draw against promotions favourites Birmingham City thanks to a late Stephen Davies goal. Brum went ahead in the first half rather against the run of play but it was a good battling effort from the Rams and they re-inforced my belief that they will be difficult to beat while once again lacking a little creatively. Hopefully Giles Barnes will be a big help in this sphere when he eventually regains fitness after a knee operation in the summer, also winger Kris Commons is having to sit it out with a hamstring strain at present.
The snooker bets went fairly well today, with three out of five coming up trumps, Joe Perry made short work of Matthew Stevens while the Nugget Steve Davis ousted reigning champion Dominic Dale and Ricky Walden edged out Stephen Hendry, who remains winless in three matches this year.
There was a narrow loss for Jimmy White against Mark King on the final frame after leading 2-0 and 4-3 whilst Fergal O Brien succumbed a little more easily 5-2 to Aussie Neil Robertson.
The majority of matches look priced up fairly accurately tomorrow so will only be playing on a couple of them. I was tempted by Ryan Day at 5/6 and Marco Fu at 4/6 for their respective matches but they havent really gotten into the thick of things yet this season and might still be on the rusty side so decided to leave those, having adjusted my own odds accordingly after a re-think.
One player getting plenty of table time is Dave Harold and I couldn't resist a small flutter at 11/4 on old Bananaman himself against the rather unpredictable Ding, certainly if the Stoke potter could make it a tactical battle the Chinese cueist could be found wanting, though if he was at his best the home town player could just as easily make short work of it.
I've also had some of the 5/6 about Ali Carter to beat Mark Williams, his form has been quite decent since the World Championships and he was unlucky not to beat Ronnie O Sullivan in the recent Northern Ireland semi final where the final red down the cushion rattled agonisingly in the jaws.
Williams has fought back a little in the last year after a slump in form but was edged out of the Grand Prix qualifiers by Simon Bedford last week so might not be in the most confident of moods here.
Graeme Dott has apparently pulled out of the tournament with a broken wrist (through playing football) according to the latest rumours so Jamie Cope gets a free passage therefore into the next round should that be confirmed.
Elsewhere the NHL ice hockey season gets underway at the weekend, they are taking the opening matches to Prague and Stockholm this year after a successful visit to London last time around when I saw Anaheim play Los Angeles at the 02 Arena.
Have had a couple of each way outright pokes at 20/1, two improving teams from the latter end of the year in Dallas and Philadelphia, the first named who came on leaps and bounds after changing their coach and the latter team also are boosted by the return of one of their star players after long term injury.
They both reached their respective Conference finals last year before being defeated and in recent years that has been a good pointer to a subsequent lifting of the Stanley Cup itself soon afterwards.
Finally my car CD player was returned from the workshop today, remember it had previously not been ejecting properly, well it does that now just fine, the only trouble is it misses out the rather more important bit of actually playing the contents first, grrrr, looks like it will be winging its way back to them in the post tomorrow!!
Punting highlight of the week: Probably Durham landing the ante post County Championship Division 1 bet at 9/2 with a fine win at Kent at the last gasp.
Punting lowlight of the week: 9 out of 10 deciders going against me in the Grand Prix snooker qualifiers a few days ago.
All the best
Rick