With Six Nations points in short supply, 'sell' may be the call to try

Down in the Sporting Index bunker, they are getting their grumpy heads on for the arrival of the gentlemen with odd-shaped balls. Free-flowing, point-scoring rugby in the upcoming Six Nations? No thank you. Tries a-plenty as the skinny quick fellows break away from the slow heavy blokes? Not really. A new England delivering another championship? Absolutely not.

Six Nations rugby is showtime for the spread-betting firms that run sportsbooks. Rugby is the fourth-biggest spread-betting sport: a whiff of Twickers, a mention of Murrayfield, talk of the Stade de France, and the rugger punters reach for their wallets.

Wayne Lincoln, trading spokesman for Sporting Index, explains: "The Six Nations brings the punters out. It's on terrestrial TV and on at a punter-friendly time in the afternoon at the weekend. But the market comes late. It'll be the Thursday before they start coming at us, and the big bets can come very, very late. If it's a good tournament, they'll keep coming at us right up to the last game. It gets very popular."

However sophisticated spread-betters have become over the years, Lincoln believes Six Nations punters revert to their default: they want things to happen, tries to be scored, and therefore tend to be buyers. They also tend to let their hearts rule their heads and if they are English, they support their team.

"What we want is tight scrappy games with very few points," says Lincoln. "And we are supporting whoever is playing against England." Tight scrappy games is where the Six Nations has been going. The stats are extraordinary. Over the last four years, the number of points scored per game is down by about 10% to 40 compared to the four years before that, 2004 to 2007. The number of tries is down, more startlingly, by 25% from a total tournament average of 66 to 50.

The reasons are not that difficult to fathom.

Defence coaches are king. The once-flamboyant French have become conservative. The Italians have become less rubbish. Depending on where each market is priced, the stats suggest your default position should be that of a seller.

Calling the tournament winner or even individual match winners will be difficult in this post-Rugby World Cup season. However, the Six Nations can be very weather-affected, and Lincoln says match markets or other markets such as successful kicking metres or number of missed kicks can become hugely volatile when the wind howls, the rain falls and the late Saturday money comes.

As for another punters' favourite, aggregate try-scoring shirt numbers, Lincoln confesses Sporting Index's perennial fear is that of the unexpected selection of a try-scoring reserve winger who might come on late to win the match wearing 22.

...and here's a spread-bet strategy that will let you give England a shout

You can set your meteorological clock by the Scotland-England game at Murrayfield on Saturday evening. The sleet will be coming down diagonally, faces will be blue, hair will be wild - and that's not including the folk with the Braveheart warpaint and tam-o'-shanter wigs.

The Scots have a truly awful Six Nations point-scoring record, crossing the white line at a rate of less than a try a game over the last four years. Playing England at home, they have not scored more than 20 points in a game against the Auld Enemy since 1986. History tells you to sell Scottish points in the match if the spread is giving anywhere near that number.