The West Coast Eagles head into their match with St Kilda as heavy favourites after both teams had differing fortunes in Round 1.
The Eagles had a comfortable win without really having to get out of second gear over North Melbourne at Eithad Stadium, with big man Josh J Kennedy kicking seven goals.
St Kilda on the other hand were blown away by a hungry Melbourne at the same ground, eventually defeated by five goals, and have lost Nick Riewoldt to a knee injury.
The Saints do have some good news in that veteran Leigh Montagna is back for them, while the Eagles ruck division suffered another blow with Drew Petrie ruled out for at least two months.
A major factor in this matchup is the location – the young Saints have not been a great road team, losing their last two here vs the Eagles by 95 and 103 points respectively.
In all, they’ve lost 7 in a row to West Coast and have not beaten them in Perth since 2010, when they were a very different team.
Is there much chance of the Saints overcoming that run of bad history this week? On the back of bad form last week, it doesn’t look good.
West Coast to cover the -37.5 line at $1.92 looks like a very reasonable possibility if recent history repeats itself.
One man who usually plays well whenever the Eagles do is Josh J Kennedy, kicking 9 goals in the last two matches vs St Kilda. He’s very short to kick a bag – $2 to kick five goals. You might be better off looking at $2.30 for Mark LeCras to kick 3+.