Sports Spread, Ireland's only spread betting firm, will this morning rue one of their peripheral bets to Saturday's Six Nations Championship match between Ireland and France at Lansdowne Road. They offered the Brian O'Driscoll special (The Lion) and quoted a spread of 40-45.

They offered one point per metre carried forward by the Blackrock College centre, 25 points if he scored a try and 25 points if Ireland won the game. A try by a French centre would cost the punter, minus 10 points while a French victory was minus 15 points.

Now given that Ireland won the match (25 points), O'Driscoll grabbed a try (25 points) and a conservative estimate of the ground gained would be in excess of 100 metres (the metres market is adjudicated by Planet-rugby.com) it is as well for once that the "stop loss" at 75 points was in place.