Punters steer clear of Saints

St Kilda is on the nose with football punters big time with most believing the NAB Cup winners will now miss the top eight for the second successive season.

Increasingly it looks as if the punters believe this year's top eight is already set in stone and there is no place for a Saints line-up fast deserving a reputation as the league's most overrated playing list.

Victorian TAB Sportsbet's Gary Davies told Sportal on Monday that for the first time this season the top eight sides were all now under even money ($2) to make the finals, with the bottom eight all over that same crucial odds barrier.

The Saints are now at odds of $2.25 just to make the eight and are not even the highest rated team outside the current top eight with that honour going to last year's runners-up Port Adelaide at $2.10 - even though Port finds itself in 12th position, one win and two spots adrift of the Saints.

TAB Sportsbet is no longer accepting bets on Hawthorn and Geelong making the eight - presuming that is now a certainty - while the other six teams currently in the top eight in the Bulldogs ($1.05), Adelaide ($1.08), Sydney ($1.16), Brisbane ($1.18), Collingwood ($1.25) and the never-say-die Kangaroos ($1.75) are considered more of a certainty by the week to figure in this year's September action.

The Saints' disappointing season - which has yielded just four wins from nine matches following Sunday's 46-point loss to the eighth-placed Lions in Brisbane - is also being reflected in premiership betting.

St Kilda began the season as second favourites to win the 2008 premiership at $6, following their NAB Cup success, behind only reigning premier Geelong but after nine rounds the Saints have blown out to $61 to win the flag and find themselves on the tenth line of betting.

There has also been a dramatic turnaround in wooden spoon betting with Essendon - which has not finished last since 1933 - on the verge of replacing Melbourne as favourite to finish on the bottom this season.

The Bombers are now $2.10 to win the wooden spoon compared to Melbourne's $2 - a far cry from after round six when the odds were $9 and $1.20 respectively - with Davies predicting the Bombers could be favourites by this time next week if they suffer another huge loss to Adelaide in Friday night, particularly if the recently improved Demons can upset the faltering Saints at Telstra Dome on Sunday.