Five tips to make you a tipping grand master

FOOTY tipping! Is there any phrase more thrilling?

Whether you’re a regular champion, a perennial midtable battler, or a hopeless wooden spooner, everyone starts the season on the same amount of points and, through their own footy acumen, with the same chance to claw their way to the top.

But if you have missed out on this sacred rite, fear not – here’s five easy tips to get the most out of tipping.

Never change your tip

Don’t change your tip if the team’s halfback has been ruled out the day before the game.

Don’t change your tip if you entered the wrong team the first time around.

Don’t change your tip if one of your dodgy mates tells you the fix is in. Don’t ever change your tip, cause if you do it will be wrong. This is a scientific fact.

It’s OK to tip against your team … with one exception

Nobody expects you to tip your team every week. The Titans are already terrible, if you’re a fan you don’t need to share their suffering.

Tip against them freely, it’s 2020 and there’s no judgment in it anymore.

There is one notable, ironclad exception – if your team is in a top four battle, and you don’t tip them, you are a coward.

Just take the home teams

You know how there’s always that one person who doesn’t know a scrum win against the feed from a cutout pass but they still manage to either win the tipping comp, or at least stay in contention until the end of the season?

I hate those people. If you want to cut them off at the pass, put your tips in at the start of the year, picking the eight home teams every week. You probably won’t win it all, but you won’t lose it. And you’ll never forget your tips.

Follow your gut

Is there anything better than taking the Tigers to beat Melbourne in Melbourne, and against the odds the boys manage to do it, which means you can lord it over everybody else in the comp?

“How did you do it?” they ask. You look them in the eye, shrug and say in your most humble voice “I just had a feeling about it” and they nod at your wisdom, and might even buy you a few beers and give you a cool nickname like Grandmaster Tipster, or The Guru. It’s the best feeling.

Swing big, hit big

As Winston Churchill once said – “scared money don’t make none”. Don’t let fear hold your back in any tipping comp. Do you want to tip an Origin depleted side for reasons you don’t even fully understand? Do it. Do you want to tip against the Roosters every single week, cause you hate them so much? Do it. Do you want to tip the Bulldogs to win by 70, just to imagine what it might be like? You know I’m going to tell you to do it. Tipping comps are about the journey, not the destination, so charge down the wicket and hit the ball right back over the bowler’s head and out of the damn ground.