Boks edge All Blacks to win Tri-Nations and other sporting news

Boks edge All Blacks to win Tri-Nations
The Springboks silenced their crit­ics and detract­ors alike when they defeated the All Blacks 32–29 in Hamilton on Saturday to secure vic­tory in the 2009 Tri-Nations and cement their repu­ta­tion as one of the greatest Springbok teams of all time. The vic­tory was a great achieve­ment by the Boks who recor­ded their third suc­cess­ive win against the All Blacks for the first time in 60 years, with the bonus of adding the Tri-Nations to their 2007 Rugby World Cup tri­umph and series vic­tory over the 2009 British Lions.

The Boks went into this match as dis­tinct under­dogs after their dis­ap­point­ing 21–6 defeat to the Wallabies in Brisbane the pre­vi­ous week­end, but only needed a single bonus point to secure the cham­pi­on­ship. However, they ended up tak­ing it in style by stand­ing up to the New Zealanders and match­ing them blow for blow with no quarter asked or given.

It was a des­per­ately close encounter how­ever, with the Boks prob­ably feel­ing at times as though they were play­ing against 16 men with Welsh ref­eree Nigel Owens mak­ing some dubi­ous calls in favour of the home side. The Boks built up a com­mand­ing lead cour­tesy of tries by livewire scrum­half Fourie Du Preez and pacy centre Jean de Villiers, the deadly accur­ate goal kick­ing of fly­half Morné Steyn and the tre­mend­ously power­ful boot of full­back Francois Steyn (pictured).

The All Blacks, to their credit, fought to the bit­ter end and nearly pulled off the win after a well-placed Dan Carter cross-kick had enabled flanker Richie McCaw to touch­down in the 79^th minute to close the gap to just three points. However, it was not enough as the Boks held on for a well-deserved vic­tory and Tri-Nations glory.

The match was also a per­sonal tri­umph for Bok cap­tain John Smit, who had been blamed by many detract­ors for being respons­ible for this team’s poor show­ing in the scrums in Brisbane the pre­vi­ous week­end. However, Smit pro­duced a rock solid per­form­ance up front to pre­vent the All Blacks from dom­in­at­ing the scrums, and was also a lynch­pin in defence as he cut the New Zealanders down to size with some thump­ing tackles – most not­ably a bone crunch­ing take down of huge All Black lock Brad Thorn.

Fullback Steyn gave the Boks the edge with his rocket launcher boot, which saw the burly No 15 slot three valu­able pen­al­ties from dis­tances ran­ging from 55 to 60m, rais­ing the ques­tion as to why he was releg­ated to the bench at the expense of util­ity back Ruan Pienaar in the first place. Steyn is a match win­ner and there is no one in world rugby who can match him for dis­tance, either in touch find­ing or goal kick­ing. His long-range kicks have proved a thorn in the side of many a Bok oppon­ent, and he is simply a must have for the South Africans – is any­one out there listening?

Scorers
All Blacks: 29 – Tries: Sitiveni Sivivatu (55^th min), Richie McCaw (79^th min).
Conversions: Dan Carter (2).
Penalties: Carter (5).
Springboks: 32 – Tries: Fourie du Preez (18^th min), Jean de Villiers (50^th min).
Conversions: Morné Steyn (2).
Penalties: Morné Steyn (2), Francois Steyn (3).
Drop goals: Morné Steyn (1).

Sharks down Bulls to stay top of Currie Cup
Blue Bulls coach Frans Ludeke must be a wor­ried man as his team suffered their third con­sec­ut­ive Currie Cup defeat when they went down 29–23 to the Sharks at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday. The defeat left the Bulls lan­guish­ing in fifth spot in the cur­rent stand­ings and the men from Pretoria will have to pro­duce some great rugby over the next four weeks if they hope to secure a semi-final berth in what is prov­ing to be a really tough com­pet­i­tion for them.

Trailing 12–6 at the break, the Sharks pro­duced a ster­ling second half per­form­ance to sink the Bulls with tal­en­ted Argentinean fly­half Juan Hernandez con­trib­ut­ing 24 price­less points via a try, two con­ver­sions, four pen­al­ties and a drop goal.  The Sharks’ other points came from a superb 50^th minute try by flanker Jacques Botes (pic­tured), who sprin­ted 30m to score along­side the posts after char­ging down an attemp­ted drop goal from Bulls fly­half Burton Francis.

The home side replied with a try by tight-head prop Werner Kruger, four pen­al­ties by Francis and two more pen­al­ties from replace­ment fly­half Francois Brummer, but it was not enough to pre­vent the Sharks from record­ing their second win of the sea­son over their Pretoria rivals, who suc­cumbed 19–13 to the Durbanites back in July.

The Sharks’ next out­ing is against the resur­gent Cheetahs at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday even­ing while the Bulls face the bot­tom of the log Boland Cavaliers on Saturday after­noon in Wellington.

Cheetahs con­tinue resur­gence with win over WP
The Free State Cheetahs con­tin­ued their recent rich run of form when they squeaked past a motiv­ated Western Province out­fit 33–31 in a thrill­ing Currie Cup encounter in Bloemfontein on Saturday.

Trailing 26–14 at the break the Cheetahs fought back strongly to pip Province at the post and record their sixth straight vic­tory after los­ing their first four games of the sea­son. It has been an amaz­ing fight-back by the Cheetahs, which has seen them reach fourth place in the com­pet­i­tion and pos­i­tion them­selves for a semi-final berth after a dis­mal start to the season.

They demon­strated this fight­ing spirit on Saturday to shock Province, who must have thought they had the game in the bag at half­time. However, the Free Staters had other ideas as they launched a second half assault cul­min­at­ing in a last gasp pen­alty try, which secured the win for the home side. Despite their loss, Province remained in second pos­i­tion over­all and in con­ten­tion for a semi-final berth. The Capetonians do battle with the improv­ing Leopards next up, but should win that match com­fort­ably to cement their place in the standings.

Scorers
Free State: 33 – Tries: Johan Wessels, Meyer Bosman, Lionel Mapoe (pic­tured), pen­alty try.
Conversions: Jacques-Louis Potgieter (2). Penalties: Potgieter (3).
Province: 31 – Tries: Frikkie Welsh (2), Tonderai Chavhanga, JJ Engelbrecht, Juan de Jongh.
Conversions: Joe Pietersen (3).

In earlier games played on Friday, the Lions downed the Leopards 31–13 in Johannesburg while Griquas defeated bot­tom of the log Boland 31–23 in Wellington. Both win­ners will want to keep up their good form when they square off against one another on Friday after­noon in Kimberley, in what prom­ises to be a really tough encounter.

Scorers
Xerox Lions: 31 – Tries: Jano Vermaak, Willem Alberts, Dusty Noble, Derick Minnie, Ruan Boshoff.
Conversions: Boshoff (3).
Leopards: 13 – Try: Basil de Doncker.
Conversion: Cecil Dumond. Penalties: Dumond (2).

Scorers
Boland: 23 – Tries: Alwyn Bester, Wendal Wehr.
Conversions: Justin Peach (2). Penalties: Peach (3).
Griquas: 31 – Tries: Barry Geel, Wilmaure Louw, Naas Olivier, Rohan Kitshoff, Trompie Nontshinga.
Conversions: Olivier (3).

Pirates draw with Arrows to stay top of PSL
Orlando Pirates remained on top of the PSL stand­ings when they held a lively Golden Arrows side to a goal­less draw at the Chatsworth Stadium in Durban on Saturday afternoon.

It wasn’t a great per­form­ance by Pirates as they wasted some def­in­ite scor­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, but it was by no means a bad per­form­ance either as the Buccaneers pre­ven­ted their oppon­ents from get­ting on the score sheet, cour­tesy of good work from their well mar­shalled defence and the safe hands of goal­keeper Moeneeb Jospehs (pictured).

The Pirates ’keeper pulled off a couple of excel­lent saves, the best of which was undoubtedly a ster­ling effort to thwart Nhlanhla Zothwane’s power­ful 28^th minute shot from 30 yards out. After soak­ing up a lot of pres­sure in the last 20 minutes of the first half, the Buccaneers looked the more pur­pose­ful team early in the second half, but could not break through the Abafana Bes’thende defence to break the dead­lock. Arrows replied with some sur­ging attacks on the Pirates goal for the rest of the half, but they could not find the back of their oppon­ents net, although Philani Shange did come close in the 80^th minute, his power­ful shot drift­ing just wide of goal.

The final 10 minutes of the match belonged chiefly to Pirates, but they failed to come up with a method of break­ing the well-organised Arrows defence, which con­tin­ued to hold firm. In the end the Buccaneers had to settle for a draw, which enabled them to remain at the top of the table on 11 points, three clear of second placed Maritzburg United who had a good away win over Kaizer Chiefs.

Weekend res­ults (left to right)
Golden Arrows 0 — Orlando Pirates 0
Jomo Cosmos 0 — Free State Stars 0
Kaizer Chiefs 0 — Maritzburg Utd 1
Black Aces 1 — Platinum Stars 1
Mamelodi Sundowns 1 — SuperSport United 1
Moroka Swallows 1 — Santos 0
Bloem Celtic 1 — AmaZulu 1
Ajax Cape Town 1 — Bidvest Wits 1

Yesterday
Platinum Stars 0  — Kaizer Chiefs 1
There are a host of PSL matches being played around the coun­try today with the pick of the bunch likely to be the encounter between second placed Maritzburg United, and fifth placed Bloem Celtic at Woodburn Stadium in Pietermaritzburg this even­ing. Both teams are play­ing some qual­ity foot­ball at the moment and the crowd should be in for a real treat.

Today’s fix­tures
Free State Stars vs Golden Arrows
Orlando Pirates vs Black Aces
Maritzburg Utd vs Bloem Celtic
SuperSport United vs Moroka Swallows
Santos vs Jomo Cosmos
AmaZulu vs Ajax Cape Town
Bidvest Wits vs Mamelodi Sundowns

Upsets abound in Emperors Palace KO feast
Saturday even­ings ‘Night of the Gladiators’ tour­na­ment at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park, Gauteng pro­duced plenty of action for fight fans with four out of the five con­tests on the bill end­ing inside the dis­tance. Talented Herman Nkabiti (66.14 kg) from Botswana opened pro­ceed­ings in con­vin­cing fash­ion when he crushed local fighter Johnny Koen (66.30 kg) in the first round. The power­ful Nkabiti over­whelmed the bewildered Koen with a bar­rage of dam­aging blows to force a stop­page just 2 min, 37 secs into the round. Nkabiti raised his record to 2–0 (2KO’s) and looks a good pro­spect, while Koen fell to 2–3 (2KO’s) and will have to tighten up his defence con­sid­er­ably if he hopes to have a future in boxing.

Next up was a con­test between Gauteng based cruis­er­weights Ronnie Lategan (85.22 kg) and Ruben Groenewald (pic­tured left) that could only be described as a bar room brawl with gloves. The two com­batants tore into each other like a pair of fren­zied wolves from the second the bell soun­ded, trad­ing bombs with reck­less aban­don and set­ting the scene for an early knockout.

And an early fin­ish it was as Groenewald (86.06 kg) climbed off the deck twice to land a crush­ing over­hand right on Lategan’s temple that sent the tat­tooed brawler crash­ing to the can­vas, prompt­ing vet­eran ref­eree Jaap van Niewienhuizen to call a halt to pro­ceed­ings at 1:44 of the round. Groenewald raised his record to 23–7-3 (9KO’s) with the win while Lategan suffered his third straight knock­out defeat to drop to 9–7 (3KO’s).

In a con­test for the International Boxing Organisation (IBO) All Africa light­weight title, Jason Bedeman (60.96 kg) handed highly touted Grant ‘Fireball’ Fourie (60.86 kg) his first pro­fes­sional defeat when he scored an impress­ive 10^th round TKO vic­tory over his Gauteng rival.

Boxing from behind an edu­cated left jab, Fourie built up an early lead to frus­trate the more aggress­ive Bedeman, who was miss­ing widely. However, the fight star­ted to turn after the fourth round as Bedeman’s punches began to find their mark, res­ult­ing in a swell­ing around Fourie’s left eye, which got stead­ily worse as the fight wore on.

In the end Bedeman’s non stop aggres­sion and determ­in­a­tion proved to be the dif­fer­ence between the two pugil­ists, as he wore down the game Fourie who was pulled out of the fight by his trainer Colin Nathan at 0:48 of round 10. It was an excel­lent win for the young Bedeman, who scored two knock­downs in the fight to remain unbeaten in 11 pro­fes­sional out­ings. A bit­terly dis­ap­poin­ted Fourie, who was the clear favour­ite going into this con­test, dropped to 10–1-1 (7KO’s).

This stun­ning upset was quickly fol­lowed by another one as South Korean Ji Hoon Kim (58.97 kg) stopped Mdatsane fighter Zolani ‘Untouchable’ Marali (58.9 kg) at 0:28 of round 10 to win the IBO super feather­weight title. It was a shock­ing loss for the 32-year-old Marali who came into this fight as the clear favour­ite and with a num­ber six rank­ing by the pres­ti­gi­ous World Boxing Council (WBC).

Marali was clearly out box­ing Kim through most of the bout, only for his ques­tion­able con­di­tion­ing to let him down in the later rounds as the rugged Korean pulled off the win in the 10^th stanza after land­ing a thump­ing right cross to Marali’s jaw, which left the South Africa unable to con­tinue. Kim raised his log to 19–5 (16 KO’s) with the win while Marali slipped to 20–3 (13 KO’s) and now faces an uncer­tain future as a top-level performer.

In the final con­test of the even­ing, tal­en­ted Gauteng fighter Thomas ‘Tommy Gunn’ Oosthuizen (76.36 kg) out boxed an over-matched Cleber Alves (75.82kg) en route to claim­ing the IBO youth super-middleweight title. The lanky Oosthuizen, who stands all of 1.93m, is freak­ishly tall for a super-middleweight and dwarfed his stocky Brazilian oppon­ent who hardly man­aged to land a decent blow all night.

Scores of 100–88 on all three cards reflec­ted the South African’s dom­in­ance as he dropped the out­classed Alves twice to record a unan­im­ous points vic­tory over 10 rounds. Oosthuizen improved his record to 8–0 (6 KO’s) with the win, but the time has come for the tal­en­ted young­ster to face bet­ter oppos­i­tion if he hopes to secure a genu­ine world cham­pi­on­ship belt one day. Alves, who is also a pro­fes­sional kick­boxer, dropped to 5–2 (4KO’s) with the loss.

Meanwhile, in Lenasia, Johannesburg on Friday night, knock­out king Patrick ‘Hammer’ Malinga (61.02 kg) didn’t dis­ap­point his fans when he dis­patched Vusumzi Tyatyeka (60.44 kg) inside a round to eas­ily retain his South African light­weight title. The 32-year-old Malinga raised his record to 26–6-2 (23 KO’s) while Tyatyeka suffered his first loss and fell to 5–1 (4 KO’s). The cham­pion has now stopped 10 of his last 11 oppon­ents and is clearly one of the country’s most excit­ing fighters.

In upcom­ing action in East London on Friday, Tshepo Lefele takes on Mawando Sibeko for the SA mini fly­weight title and Xolise Sinyabi squares off against Tendani Munyai for the national junior feather­weight championship.

Poppy pips Tanith to take Spar Ladies Challenge
Gauteng ath­lete Poppy Mlambo (pic­tured) ran a strong race to oust Durban run­ner Tanith Maxwell and take hon­ours in the Spar Women’s 10km chal­lenge, which was held in Pietermaritzburg on Sunday morning.

The dimin­ut­ive Mlambo opened up an early lead on the much taller Kloof based run­ner and never looked back to clinch vic­tory in 36 mins, 3 secs. “It was fine, even though my body was a bit stiff from the SA cross coun­try cham­pi­on­ships in Tshwane yes­ter­day,” com­men­ted Mlambo on her run through the leafy streets of KwaZulu-Natal’s cap­ital city.

The 33-year-old Maxwell, who was return­ing from the World Championships in Berlin where she com­peted in the mara­thon, fin­ished in 36:24 and was clearly a tired lady at the end. “I didn’t enjoy this run. My legs were dead after Berlin and I was feel­ing very flat. I did trip and fall dur­ing the warm-up, which wasn’t great, but Poppy would have won any­way; she just had the spring in her step today,” explained a dis­ap­poin­ted Maxwell.

It was a good win for Mlambo, who will now look for­ward to rep­res­ent­ing South Africa at the World Half-Marathon Championships in Birmingham, England next month. Maxwell’s Boxer club-mate, Janene Carey, fin­ished a dis­tant third in 38:15.

Meanwhile, sev­eral Australian media reports have stated that gender tests con­duc­ted on world 800m cham­pion Caster Semenya have indicted that the South African ath­lete is inter­sexed, which could mean the end of her young career.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has refused to con­firm or deny last week’s media reports con­cern­ing Semenya, say­ing it is review­ing its own test res­ults and will issue a final decision in November on whether the 18-year-old will be allowed to com­pete in future inter­na­tional women’s events. The IAAF ordered sex tests on Semenya after con­cerns had been voiced about her mus­cu­lar physique, run­ning style and rap­idly improv­ing times.

Whatever the out­come con­cern­ing Semenya, it is hoped that the con­tro­versy sur­round­ing her will be resolved by all parties con­cerned in a tact­ful and dig­ni­fied man­ner, as the whole saga has the poten­tial to cripple the young Limpopo ath­lete both emo­tion­ally and psy­cho­lo­gic­ally. It’s a sad situ­ation that hope­fully will have a happy end­ing, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Kingston takes Masters to end drought
James Kingston (pic­tured) ended a run of dis­mal form by defeat­ing Denmark’s Anders Hansen in a sudden-death play­off for the Mercedes-Benz Masters title in Cologne, Germany, on Sunday. The South African and Dane both fin­ished on 275 for 13-under-par, a stroke ahead of the trail­ing pack. A late bogey for a three-under 69 forced the play­off after Hansen had set the tar­get with a fine 67. A par on the first play­off hole earned the South African the $457,000 (R3 381 800) first prize for only his second European Tour title in nine years.

The suc­cess added to Kingston’s vic­tory in the 2008 South African Open, which came after four European Tour second places. Until that win Kingston, although achiev­ing con­sid­er­able suc­cess on the Sunshine Tour and in Asia, had battled to make his European Tour break­through. The 43-year-old late bloomer now moves into Europe’s top 60 play­ers who will con­tend the upcom­ing $10 mil­lion (R74 mil­lion) Dubai World Championship finale. It just goes to show that you should never give up try­ing as suc­cess may just be around the corner.

India bring out the big guns
India aren’t tak­ing any chances ahead of their Davis Cup World Group Playoff tie against South Africa at the Indoor Arena at Ellis Park over the week­end. The Indian Tennis Federation has named a full-strength squad con­sist­ing of Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna, Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri with SP Misra as the non-playing cap­tain and Nandan Bal as coach. They will be tak­ing on the South African squad of Rik de Voest (pic­tured), Izak van der Merwe, Wesley Moodie, Jeff Coetzee and Raven Klaasen with John Laffnie de Jager being named as the non-playing cap­tain. The first two singles matches will be played on Friday, the doubles on Saturday, and the reverse singles on Sunday. The City of Johannesburg’s com­munity devel­op­ment divi­sion is spon­sor­ing the tie.

Meanwhile, the afore­men­tioned Moodie’s good run at the U.S. Open was cut short last week when he and his double’s part­ner, Dick Norman, went down 6–3 5–7 6–4 to India’s Leander Paes and The Czech Republic’s Lukas Dlouhy in a men’s doubles quarterfi­nal – hope­fully not a bad omen con­sid­er­ing Paes’ involve­ment in this week’s cru­cial Davis Cup tie.

Photo Credits:
Boks edge All Blacks to win Tri-Nations — Photo – Francois Steyn: Source – www.sarugbyblog.com
Sharks down Bulls to stay top of Currie Cup — Photo – Jacques Botes: Source – www.sharksrugby.co.za
Cheetahs con­tinue resur­gence with win over WP — Photo – Lionel Mapoe: Source – www.sarugby.co.za
Pirates draw with Arrows to stay top of PSL — Photo – Moeneeb Josephs: Source – www.orlandopiratesfc.com
Upsets abound in Emperors Palace KO feast — Photo – Ruben Groenewald: Source – www.flickr.com
Poppy pips Tanith to take Spar Ladies Challenge — Photo – Poppy Mlambo: Source – Guy Mortimer
Kingston takes Masters to end drought — Photo – James Kingston: Source – www.dailymail.co.uk
India bring out the big guns — Photo – Rik de Voest: Source – www.zimbio.com