AFL

FRIDAY night football is generally the highest-rating game of the week from a television perspective and also the highest turnover game for footy punting.

But that isn’t the case tonight when strugglers St Kilda and Carlton meet.

Punters have a few reasons for ignoring the match.

The first is that even supporters of these clubs can’t get excited about it from a football spectacle point of view. Another is that St Kilda’s record of just three wins this season means not many will take their odds of $1.35.

And the Blues are so bad that punters aren’t following the usual trend of backing the outsider when two ordinary teams meet.

There is much more interest in the Sydney-North Melbourne clash, which shapes as a fascinating betting affair. The early money was for the Kangaroos after it became clear the Swans would go into this game without a host of big names. But punters have got behind Sydney in the past 24 hours, with the Swans now accounting for 75 per cent of the hold on this game.