Weekly Sports Wrap, South African sports news — 21 September

Ryan Kankowski

Sharks in the driv­ing seat after win over Cheetahs
The Sharks cemen­ted their pos­i­tion at the top of the Absa Currie Cup stand­ings with a con­vin­cing 30–16 vic­tory over bogey team the Free State Cheetahs at Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday after­noon. The Durban out­fit bagged a full house of log points with an 80-minute per­form­ance that would have greatly pleased coach John Plumtree.

Although the coastal team never quite hit top-gear, they non­ethe­less dom­in­ated the game and wrapped up the four-try bonus point with a 78^th-minute touch down from reserve scrum­half Rory Kockott. Livewire eighth­man Ryan Kankowski (pic­tured), who won the ‘Man of the Match’ award, was instru­mental in set­ting up Kockott’s try and the Sharks’ second five pointer – scored in the 29^th minute by right wing Odwa Ndungane. Continued

Weekly Sports Wrap, South African sports news – 7 September

Morne Steyn

Morne’s bril­liant boot fails to save Boks
A long range pen­alty from full­back Kurtley Beale late in the game enabled Australia to record a nar­row 41–39 over South Africa in their pen­ul­tim­ate Vodacom Tri-Nations fix­ture at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Saturday. In a nailbit­ing affair which saw the Springboks claw their way back into the match after trail­ing 31–13 at the break, it was Beale who held his nerve under pres­sure to slot the win­ning kick and earn his side their first win on the highveld since 1963.

Just as was the case at Loftus Versfeld a week ago the Aussies raced into an early lead scor­ing four con­ver­ted tries and a pen­alty while the Boks could only muster two pen­al­ties from kick­ing maes­tro Morne Steyn (pic­tured right) in reply. Trailing 31–6 just minutes before half-time it seemed as though the Boks were dead and bur­ied, but a moment of bril­liance from vet­eran lock Victor Matfield set the stage for an unbe­liev­able second half fight back. Continued

World Cup News — the Final 2

Carles Puyol

Puyol powers Spain into final
Spain qual­i­fied for their first World Cup final when they defeated Germany 1–0 in a tense encounter at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban yes­ter­day even­ing. A 73^rd minute header from defender Carles Puyol (pic­tured) was enough to pro­pel ‘La Roja’ into Sunday’s final against Holland at Soccer City in Johannesburg.

Vicente del Bosque’s second ranked side dom­in­ated the match but battled to fin­ish off a German team lack­ing their usual pace until Puyol struck the decis­ive blow 17 minutes from the end. “Players from defence to attack were extraordin­ary and played a great game,” said Spain coach del Bosque. Continued

Currie Cup fixtures

Currie Cup Fixtures

After nearly a month of non-stop foot­ball, the FIFA World Cup ends on Sunday but fear not sports lov­ers, the South African domestic rugby com­pet­i­tion, the Currie Cup kicks off on July 9^th with week­end fix­tures lined up for just over three months.

Use our com­pre­hens­ive list of matches, times and loc­a­tions to keep up to date on all the Currie Cup action! Continued

Latest Results from the World Cup

Carlos Tevez

Argentina cruise into quarter-finals
Carlos Tevez (pic­tured) scored two goals for Diego Maradonna’s Argentina as the South Americans defeated Mexico 3–1 in their World Cup second round match at Soccer City yes­ter­day. Argentina’s win set up a rematch of their 1986 and 1990 World Cup finals with Germany who out­classed England earlier in the day.

However, although Argentina argu­ably deserved their vic­tory, the match was not without con­tro­versy. Tevez’s 26^th minute opener should not have coun­ted as tele­vi­sion replays showed he was well off­side. Continued

South African Sports News – 21 April

Teko Modise

Bafana shrug off the cold in Germany
Bafana Bafana spent the lat­ter half of last week adjust­ing to cold weather in Germany and build­ing on their Brazil train­ing camp in pre­par­a­tion for the 2010 World Cup.  After train­ing for nearly a month in sum­mer tem­per­at­ures in South America, the South African squad trained in rainy and chilly con­di­tions in the town of Herzogenaurach.

“We can­not com­plain much. You have to under­stand that when the World Cup starts, it will be winter as well. So we can get used to it this way as well,” said South African mid­fielder Teko Modise (pic­tured) fol­low­ing Thursday morning’s train­ing ses­sion. Coach Carlos Albert Parreira has so far con­cen­trated on build­ing up his team’s fit­ness after their camp in Brazil. Continued

South African Sports News – 17 March

Kermit Erasmus

Two wins and a draw for Bafana
Bafana Bafana’s month long train­ing camp in Brazil is going well. The national side got in some much needed match prac­tice against local teams over the last couple of days play­ing to a goal­less draw against Volta Redonda on Saturday, troun­cing Fluminese 8–0 on Sunday and then defeat­ing Boavista 3–0 on Monday.

Bafana’s goals against Fluminese came in the form of braces from Siphiwe Tshabalala and Kermit Erasmus (pic­tured) with Reneilwe Letsholonyane, Tlou Segolela, Richard Henyekane and Dylon Claasen also get­ting in on the action with a goal apiece. The matches were played at the Granja Comary in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where Bafana are hold­ing their camp. Continued

South African Sports News – 10 March

Schalk Burger

Schalk leads Stormers to impress­ive vic­tory
The Vodacom Stormers looked very much like poten­tial Super 14 semi-finalists when they demol­ished the Highlanders 33–0 at Newlands on Saturday even­ing. The Cape out­fit ran in four tries without reply and earned a bonus point in the last minute of the game when they dot­ted down for the final try to make up for the log point that was missed when they failed to hold on for the draw against the Brumbies the pre­vi­ous week.

It was a com­mand­ing per­form­ance from the Stormers, who were bril­liantly led by Schalk Burger (pic­tured) until he was replaced late in the game. They were 16–0 up at half time, and although they had to wait until the 60^th minute before scor­ing their second try, they more than deserved their bonus point and could eas­ily have scored more tries had they not been let down by poor fin­ish­ing ... Continued

South African Sports News – 3 March

AB de Villiers

Proteas win the war, but lose the battle
Although the Proteas thumped India by 90 runs in the third and final One Day International (ODI) in Ahmedabad on Saturday, it was a bit­ter­sweet vic­tory for the South Africans who ulti­mately ended up los­ing the series 2–1 to go with their 1–1 draw in the Test series. Batting first on a flat wicket, Jacques Kallis’ men pos­ted an impos­ing 365/2 off their allot­ted 50 overs with Kallis (104 not out off 94 balls) and man of the match AB de Villiers (102 not out off 59 balls) in sub­lime form ... Continued

South African Sports News – 24 February

Wayne Parnell

Late rally not enough as South Africa lose by one run
The Proteas lost their second con­sec­ut­ive match against India when they went down by a single run to the home side in the first One Day International (ODI) at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur on Sunday. The agon­ising defeat came just four days after their innings and 57 run loss to the same oppon­ents in the second test match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata, and was a bit­ter pill to swal­low for Jacques Kallis’ men.

Chasing a daunt­ing vic­tory tar­get of 299 at a rate of 5.98 to the over the Proteas were dis­missed for 297 when Wayne Parnell (pic­tured centre) was run out by Shanthakumaran Sreesanth off the last ball of the innings. Parnell and fel­low ‘tai­lender’ Dale Steyn bat­ted superbly to take South Africa to the brink of vic­tory, but in the end it was to no avail as the cour­ageous duo per­ished in the final over ... Continued

South African Sports News – 10 February

Dale Steyn

Proteas crush India in just four days
India made a vali­ant effort to stave off an innings defeat against South Africa in the first test at Jamtha Stadium in Nagpur yes­ter­day, but in the end it was to no avail as they crashed to an innings-and-six run defeat. The Proteas’ win was set up by a mam­moth 340-run third wicket, first innings part­ner­ship between Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis, which knocked the stuff­ing out of the home side.

Amla even­tu­ally car­ried his bat through the innings to fin­ish on a bril­liant 253 not out, which came off 473 balls and included 22 fours. Kallis weighed in with 173 runs (15 fours and two sixes) off 351 deliv­er­ies although he must have been dis­ap­poin­ted at not going on to score that elu­sive double ton. There were also use­ful con­tri­bu­tions from AB de Villiers (53) and Mark Boucher (39) to help the Proteas to 558/6 declared off 176 overs ... Continued

South African Sports News – 3 February

Graeme Smith

Proteas ready for mighty India
The Proteas opened their tour of India yes­ter­day with a prac­tice match ahead of their quest to unseat the hosts as the premier test nation. The tour­ists are tak­ing on the Indian board president’s XI in a two-day match in Nagpur before the first test begins at the new Vidarbha Cricket Association ground on the out­skirts of the city on Saturday.

The two-test series – the second test will be played at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata from February 14 – could be one of the most import­ant the Proteas have played in recent times. The num­ber two ranked South Africans need a 2–0 series win to dis­lodge India from the top spot. A 1–0 res­ult in favour of the tour­ists will leave both teams level on 123 rat­ing points. Continued

South African Sports News – 27 January

Mickey Arthur

Mickey calls it quits
Proteas’ coach Mickey Arthur (pic­tured) has resigned. The shock­ing news was leaked to the media on Monday and although Arthur’s resig­na­tion has still to be made offi­cial, it has been con­firmed by reli­able sources. It is believed that Arthur and Proteas’ cap­tain Graeme Smith have been at log­ger­heads for some time and the res­ult is that their rela­tion­ship has broken down completely.

The depar­ture of Arthur has come at a dif­fi­cult time for the Proteas who leave these shores on Saturday for a demand­ing tour of India, which con­sists of two tests and three one-day inter­na­tion­als (ODI’s). It has been learned that former South African pace bowler Corrie van Zyl is likely to be appoin­ted as care­taker coach for the tour of India. Continued

South African Sports News – 20 January

JP Duminy

Proteas finally get it right
Paceman Morne Morkel grabbed four wick­ets to guide South Africa to vic­tory by an innings and 74 runs over England as the home side squared the series on the fourth day of the fourth Castle test match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday.

The tower­ing Morkel fin­ished with the impress­ive fig­ures of 4/59 off 16 overs as the vis­it­ors were dis­missed for 169 just before the lunch inter­val. The res­ult means that the Castle test series ends 1–1 and South Africa there­fore keep the Basil D’Oliveira Trophy. Paul Collingwood was the only England bats­man to pose a threat to the Proteas’ bowl­ers as the right-hander put together a superb 71 off 88 deliv­er­ies, which included 12 bound­ar­ies and a glor­i­ous six. Continued

South African Sports News – 13 January

Morne Morkel

Proteas come up short again
Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell helped England to an improb­able draw in the third test against South Africa at Newlands in Cape Town last Thursday. England now leads the series 1–0 with only one test remaining.

However, a sud­den bat­ting col­lapse after tea trans­formed the con­test from a dull and life­less encounter into a nail biter. England had lost nine wick­ets at the end of the match, with their final pair hav­ing to stave off the last 17 balls to earn a draw. This is the third time in less than a year that England have been nine wick­ets down on the last day and still man­aged to get a draw. One of those occa­sions was the open­ing test of this series, and South Africa will be gut­ted to have twice come so close to get­ting a win ... Continued