Any remaining Blackburn fans among the foolishly loyal 316 who travelled to Wearside not wondering what difference a new manager might bring to the club received a rude awakening on Saturday after Sunderland came from behind to snatch a victory at their team’s expense. Martin O’Neill’s first game in the Stadium of Light hot seat looked to be going Rovers’ way thanks to Simon Vukcevic’s early strike. As the game wore on, and with O’Neill’s troops unable to fashion a reply, Sunderland’s Win Index dropped. It was as low as 4 when the match reached the final 15 minutes at which point the first batch of savvy Sporting punters got stuck in. Their long position became a good one with David Vaughan’s equaliser and they really struck gold when Sebastian Larsson’s injury-time free kick went flying past Paul Robinson. The biggest winner of all was repaid handsomely for his £150 show of faith in O’Neill’s side.

It's been a quiet time for volcanoes since Eyjafjallajökull made the talk of office water coolers around the world, but the Mole can report news of an eruption at the York Barbican this week. It might not have caused the same level of disruption as its Icelandic cousin, but the lesser known Trump/Allen Volcano proved exceedingly costly for one Sporting Index client during the UK Championship final. He was a buyer in the market, which is a prediction on the total points difference between the players for the entire match, and, having seen Judd Trump win the title with a 10-8 victory over Mark Allen, likely assumed a small profit was coming his way. However, assumptions can be dangerous, and the match loser was a market winner, with the aggregate value of Allen's pots a meaty 82 points better than the Juddernaut's, leaving our man with 3030 reasons to regret his £15 wager.