The flurry of messages and tweets and emails I received on Friday night was quite overwhelming. This, as a follow up to some of the greatest advice I have ever thought to share on these hallowed pages. Allow me to explain.

On Friday morning in the the Morning Spice, I ran a headline saying that you could win R1,000 if you put R100 on Bryan Habana scoring the first try in the Stormers v Blues game that night, being played at Newlands. Here is a screenshot of that message.

Personally I put R350 on Bryan scoring that first try. I mean, it was a feasible proposition. And 10 to 1 are good odds. His odds were one of the lowest. So naturally I tweeted the same story later that day, as the game was starting in a few hours time. And then, suddenly, out of the blue, I see this tweet:

How very peculiar, I thought to myself.

SilverStreak and I often contemplate these types of messages one receives on Twitter. It’s almost a product of Twitter itself and it has been suggested that these messages are actually just viruses – an inevitability as your Twitter account gets bigger. One cannot possibly conceive that a real person would take the time out to say that Bryan Habana scoring the first try, was the joke of the week. Is it really nothing but fanciful conjecture to think that Bryan Habana, who God made with the primary objective to score tries as fast as possible, may well score the first try? That’s what Bryan Habana does.

The rest is history, of course. As Bryan Habana went ahead and scored the first try of the game, right under my nose, as we watched from the Corona box. What a wonderful feeling it was, knowing that so many 2oceansvibers had clocked a bit of cash, on a small risk bet – adding some exrea fun to their rugby.

As for @slabss, he tweeted something the next day, saying that he may well be the joke of the week. That’s all very well. But I still wonder what makes people send messages like that in the first place. I would totally understand if I had mentioned a prop scoring the first try. But I didn’t. It was Bryan Habana. It’s what he does – very often at the beginning of a game. For 10 to 1 odds? I’ll take it!

This stuff reminds me a bit of the Jasonator. It’s the type of thing he does the whole time.

CLICK HERE to place some Super 15 bets. Remember to check again on the Thursday afternoon before the weekend sport. That’s when they give you all the spicy bets – like first try scorer, winning margin, half time vs full-time winner. It’s great fun.

And while we’re talking about money, don’t forget the MegaMillions jackpot has rolled over and Tuesday’s jackpot is R1.8 Billion ($241 Million). You can buy tickets for that here – online and via mobile.

[picture source]