South African Sports News – 28 October

Arrows shoot down hap­less Ajax
Golden Arrows were crowned MTN8 cham­pi­ons in Soweto on Saturday night when they crushed Ajax Cape Town 6–0 in one-sided MTN8 final at the Orlando Stadium. In the pro­cess, Arrows won their first major trophy and a record
R8-million winner-takes-all prize.

The match was effect­ively over as a con­test after 20 minutes when the KwaZulu Natal out­fit took an unbeat­able 2–0 lead cour­tesy of some pos­it­ive attack­ing soc­cer and some shock­ing defend­ing from a woe­ful Ajax out­fit. Despite Ajax’s poor dis­play it was an excel­lent win for Arrows and their 38-year-old coach Manqoba Mngqithi, who is one of a num­ber of prom­ising young coaches in the Premier Soccer League (PSL). Mngqithi deserves applause for his pos­it­ive tac­tics of attack­ing and tak­ing the game to Ajax and, if he keeps up this sort of approach, it will surely not be too long before Arrows win another major tournament.

Goals in the ninth and 48^th minutes by Joseph Henyekane (pic­tured), Thokozani Mshengu (66^th minute), Nhlanhla Zothwane (73^rd minute), Njabulo Manqana (90^th minute) and an embar­rass­ing own goal by defender Deniss Ivanovs (20^th minute) gave Arrows their massive win, which broke the South African record for the biggest win­ning mar­gin in a final. Their crush­ing vic­tory will also give Arrows a lot of con­fid­ence for their PSL cam­paign and, with Mngqithi and co at the helm, it won’t be sur­pris­ing if the KwaZulu-Natalians win that trophy as well this season.

PSL sea­son hots up
The PSL soc­cer sea­son is really begin­ning to catch fire now with the top teams involved in some intense battles for suprem­acy. As usual, there are a host of matches tak­ing place all over the coun­try tonight with more to fol­low on the week­end. The pick of today’s matches is likely to be the clash between eighth placed Kaizer Chiefs (pic­tured) and high­fly­ing Golden Arrows at the Orlando Stadium at 7.30pm.

Arrows, who are cur­rently lying ninth in this year’s stand­ings, will be look­ing to repeat the form they showed against Ajax Cape Town in Saturday’s MTN8 final. However, the Amakhosi are unlikely to be easy pick­ings at home and Arrows will have to be on their very best form to pull off a win.

Although there are plenty of good match ups tak­ing place over the week­end, the game to prob­ably look out for is Saturday’s encounter between top of the table SuperSport United and Bidvest Wits who are cur­rently fourth on the stand­ings. Kick off at the Bidvest Stadium is at 8.15pm.

Results (left to right)
Last Wednesday
Santos 2            Free State Stars 2
Bidvest Wits 0         Black Aces 1
SuperSport Utd 3        Orlando Pirates 0
Bloem Celtic 0        Mamelodi Sundowns 2
Kaizer Chiefs 1        Moroka Swallows 2
Maritzburg Utd 1        Jomo Cosmos 1

Yesterday
SuperSport United 2    Santos 2

Fixtures (left to right)
Today
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Platinum Stars
Maritzburg Utd vs Black Aces
Moroka Swallows vs Ajax Cape Town
Kaizer Chiefs vs Golden Arrows
Bloem Celtic vs Jomo Cosmos
Orlando Pirates  vs AmaZulu
Bidvest Wits  vs Free State Stars
Saturday
Moroka Swallows vs Platinum Stars
Kaizer Chiefs vs Orlando Pirates
SuperSport United vs Bidvest Wits
Maritzburg Utd vs Free State Stars
Sunday
Ajax Cape Town vs Golden Arrows
Jomo Cosmos vs Mamelodi Sundowns
AmaZulu vs Santos
Bloem Celtic vs Black Aces

Safa replace one Brazilian with another
Meanwhile, the South African Football Association (Safa) have appoin­ted Brazilian World Cup win­ning coach Carlos Alberto Parreira (pic­tured right) as the new Bafana Bafana coach. Parreira will replace fel­low Brazilian Joel Santana who quit the post last Monday after a string of poor results.

Safa pres­id­ent Kirsten Nematandani offi­cially announced that Parreira would be their coach of choice after a lengthy Safa National Executive meet­ing held at the OR Tambo Airport. However, the Brazilian will not be earn­ing the huge R1.8-million per month salary he enjoyed in his pre­vi­ous stint at the helm of Bafana or the R1.4-million Santana earned each month. The 66-year-old Parreira had pre­vi­ously coached Bafana before relin­quish­ing his post to return to his nat­ive Brazil cit­ing his wife’s ill health.

Safa also announced that a third assist­ant coach would be added to help Parreira. The likely coach is SuperSport United’s Gavin Hunt who many felt should have been appoin­ted instead of Parreira. The two cur­rent assist­ant coaches, Pitso Mosimane and Jairo Leal, have been retained. However, Hunt, Clive Barker and Jomo Sono will con­tinue as assessors for Bafana.

Parreira won the respect of the play­ers when he was coach last time round and is expec­ted to boost their moral and con­sequently their per­form­ance when he takes charge of the squad once again. Safa are hop­ing that Parreira arrives in time to take charge of Bafana ahead of their friendly matches on home soil against Japan on November 14 and against Jamaica three days later.

Brilliant Bravo blasts Cobras
Former West Indies player Dwayne Bravo steered Trinidad&Tobago to a com­fort­able seven-wicket vic­tory over the Cape Cobras in the Champions League semi-final at Hyderabad, India on Thursday. Bravo hammered 58 runs off just 34 balls which included four fours and three sixes and fea­tured in a valu­able fourth wicket part­ner­ship of 93 runs with Daren Ganga (44 runs off 31 balls) to set up the win for the Caribbean franchise.

The pair came together with the score on 85/3 after 10.1 overs and faced the daunt­ing task of chas­ing down the 175/5 scored by the South Africans. However, the always-dangerous Bravo smashed Rory Kleinveldt to the bound­ary in the final over to seal the win for his team. JP Duminy (pic­tured) had earlier plundered 61 off 40 balls with four fours and three sixes, and with Herschelle Gibbs (42 off 27 balls) had given the Cobras a com­pet­it­ive total.

However, the Cobras failed to defend their score against a rampant Trinidad. Adrian Barath (29 off 16 balls) and William Perkins (20 off 16 balls) scored 53 runs in the open­ing five overs with pace­man Monde Zondeki, in par­tic­u­lar, bear­ing the brunt of their assault. Bravo then picked up where they left off, smash­ing Kleinveldt and Vernon Philander all over the park to help steer his side to victory.

Duminy fin­ished as the top run-scorer in the tour­na­ment and played a superb innings against Trinidad, but it was not enough to save his team from being knocked out of the com­pet­i­tion after hav­ing prom­ised so much in the early run­ning. In the end, the Cobras were let down badly by a shoddy bowl­ing and field­ing dis­play and Bravo and com­pany made them pay dearly for their sloppy efforts. The tour­na­ment was even­tu­ally won by New South Wales who defeated Trinidad by 41 runs in the final the fol­low­ing day.

Triple ton Cook gets into the record books
Stephen Cook (pic­tured left) set a new South African first-class bat­ting record when he scored 390 runs for the bizhub Highveld Lions against the Chevrolet Warriors in a SuperSport Series match at Buffalo Park in East London on Sunday.

Cook’s mam­moth knock helped his team to a colossal 690/9, an over­all lead of 158 runs on the first innings, before rain brought pro­ceed­ings to a halt 30 minutes after the tea break leav­ing the umpires no choice but to declare the match a draw. The Lions’ opener bat­ted for 13 hours and 58 minutes and faced 648 balls while notch­ing up 45 fours and a six, before he was trapped leg-before by off-spinner Johan Botha shortly after tea.

The 26-year-old’s innings bettered the pre­vi­ous highest score by a South African of 356 scored by Barry Richards for South Australia against Western Australia in Perth dur­ing the 1970/71 sea­son. The pre­vi­ous best indi­vidual first-class score by a South African on home soil was an unbeaten 337, which Daryll Cullinan achieved for Transvaal against Northern Transvaal in Johannesburg dur­ing the 1993/94 sea­son. Cook also went past 5 000 first-class career runs dur­ing his knock and his innings was the 12^th highest indi­vidual score in all first-class cricket.

It was also a great day for Lions bats­men Thami Tsolekile who, together with Cook, pos­ted a record first-class sixth-wicket part­ner­ship for matches in South Africa. The duo notched up 365 runs in 107.4 overs, com­fort­ably beat­ing the pre­vi­ous record of 317 runs scored by Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist for Australia versus South Africa at the Wanderers dur­ing the 2001/02 sea­son. Cook and Tsolekile’s record-breaking part­ner­ship was finally brought to an end when Tsolekile, with his score on 141, top-edged a deliv­ery from off-spinner Michael Smith and was caught at mid-off by Rusty Theron.

Left-arm swing bowler Lonwabo Tsotsobe, with 3/95 off 30 overs, and speed­ster Rusty Theron, with 3/57 off 22 overs, were the only Warriors’ bowl­ers who had any­thing to shout about on a day dom­in­ated by the bats­men. The Warriors has earlier pos­ted 532 runs in their first innings with Ashwell Prince get­ting 154 and Botha 97. The Warriors’ next match is against the Diamond Eagles at Buffalo Park, East London on November 19 while the Lions tackle the Nashua Cape Cobras at Newlands in Cape Town a week earlier.

Dolphins and Lions fight to a draw
The weather had the last laugh in the SuperSport Series match between the Nashua Dolphins and the Nashua Titans, which ended in a draw at SuperSport Park in Centurion on Sunday. The Dolphins scored 209/4 in their second innings, still need­ing 82 runs for vic­tory before the con­test was called off due to the over­cast conditions.

Andrew Hall on 10 and David Miller, who was yet to open his account, were at the crease for the vis­it­ors when the umpires called a halt to pro­ceed­ings. The KwaZulu-Natalians were well placed to pull off a win at 152/2 before quick bowler Morne Morkel trapped Loots Bosman (pic­tured) lbw for 53 off 125 balls. The hard-hitting Bosman had shared in a third-wicket part­ner­ship of 59 with Ahmed Amla, brother of team-mate Hashim, who scored 37.

Amla then depar­ted just one run after Bosman when he was clean bowled by Morkel. Amla’s dis­missal opened the door for 20-year-old Cameron Delport to play an enter­pris­ing knock of 36 off 32 balls, which put the Durban based team back in the hunt for a win. However, the young­ster was forced to retire hurt after being struck on the head by a boun­cer from the always-aggressive Dale Steyn, which, together with the inclement weather, ended the Dolphins’ chances of victory.

The home side had begun the day on 187/7, an over­all lead of 214 runs, with the vis­it­ors in search of quick wick­ets to give them­selves any hope of vic­tory. Morkel (11) and Paul Harris (30 not out) con­trib­uted a fur­ther 24 runs to the overnight total before the former was trapped lbw by Louw.

However, the Dolphins’ hopes of wrap­ping up the innings were dashed by a determ­ined ninth-wicket stand between Harris and Steyn who made an unbeaten 26. The pair put on 52 runs off 97 balls before the declar­a­tion came just over an hour before lunch, which meant the KwaZulu-Natalians needed 291 runs to win the game. The Titans’ next out­ing is against the Diamond Eagles in Bloemfontein on November 26, while the Dolphins will face the same team on November 12.

Cavaliers and Leopards go one up
The Boland Cavaliers and the Platinum Leopards both came away with wins in their respect­ive Absa Currie Cup promotion/relegation matches played on Saturday. In Wellington, the Cavaliers held on to defeat First Division cham­pi­ons, the Pumas, 36–35 at the Boland Stadium while in Potchefstroom, the Leopards sur­vived a spir­ited chal­lenge from the SWD Eagles to pre­vail 47–42 at Olen Park.

Both matches fea­tured plenty of enter­tain­ing, run­ning rugby with 10 tries being scored in the Wellington game and eleven in the other. The Leopards ran in six tries to the five scored by the Eagles while the Cavaliers and the Pumas shared five apiece.

Scorers
In Wellington
Boland Cavaliers 36 – Tries: Zandré Jordaan (2), Marnus Hugo (pic­tured), Wendal Wehr, Penalty try. Conversions: Justin Peach (4). Penalty: Peach.
Pumas 35  – Tries: Allistair Kettledas (2), Hyron Thyse, Jacques Coetzee, Jaco Bouwer. Conversions: Braam Pretorius (2). Penalties: Pretorius (2).
In Potchefstroom
Platinum Leopards 47 – Tries: Jovan Bowles (2), Shuaib Samaai (pic­tured left), Danie Dames, Basil de Doncker, Theo van Wyk. Conversions: Cecil Dumond (4). Penalties: Dumond (3).
SWD Eagles 42 – Tries: Bobby Joubert, Dougie Hellmuth, Jandre’ Blom, Junior Leota, Baldwin McBean. Conversions: Ricardo Croy (3), Blom. Penalties: Croy (3).

Both teams will face each other again this week­end with the Eagles and the Leopards doing battle at the Oteniqua Stadium in George and the Pumas and the Cavaliers squar­ing off at the Pumas Stadium in Witbank.

Mixed res­ults for SA fight­ers over­seas
Former International Boxing Federation (IBF) heavy­weight cham­pion Francois ‘The White Buffalo’ Botha (48–4-2, 28 KO’s) suc­cess­fully defen­ded his lightly regarded World Boxing Foundation (WBF) heavy­weight title against 39-year-old Pedro Carrion (8–2, 6 KO’s) in Dessau, Germany on Saturday night.

The 41-year-old Botha won an unpop­u­lar major­ity decision over the 6’7’ Cuban at the Anhalt Arena with the judges giv­ing the ver­dict to the South African by scores of 114–110, 115–115 and 114–113. Botha has dif­fi­cultly land­ing punches on his much taller oppon­ent, who enjoyed a five inch height advant­age over the South African.

The bout pro­ceeded at a slow, mostly unevent­ful pace and at times resembled noth­ing but a glor­i­fied spar­ring ses­sion. However, given that the com­batants had a com­bined age of 80, this was not sur­pris­ing. After the bout, Botha said that he injured his right hand in the open­ing round, which pre­ven­ted him from throw­ing mean­ing­ful punches. The win kept Botha’s career alive, although, based on his per­form­ance on Saturday, he would have little chance of pulling off a win against a legit­im­ate top ten con­tender – some­thing which Carrion is clearly not.

Meanwhile, at the Agua Caliente Casino in California, USA, Mexican Tomos Rojas suc­cess­fully defen­ded his interim World Boxing Council (WBC) super fly­weight title against South African Evans Mbamba on Saturday night. The 29-year-old Rojas (32–11-1, 22 KO’s) knocked the 28-year-old Mbamba (16–1, 8 KO’s) down once in the third and elev­enth rounds to pre­vail by scores of 119–108 and 117–109 (twice). It was a dom­in­ant per­form­ance by the highly exper­i­enced Rojas who has shared a ring with many top cal­ibre fight­ers, includ­ing the likes of the fear­some punch­ing and legendary Mexican world cham­pion, Jorge Arce.

The loss was a major dis­ap­point­ment for Mbamba, who will now have to return to the draw­ing board to fig­ure out what went wrong on Saturday night. Rojas, on the other hand, can look for­ward to a December bout with highly regarded Australian Vic Darchinyan.

In local action, Mfundo Gwayana retained his South African junior fly­weight title when he recor­ded an easy TKO vic­tory over Thabo Sishwane in Mdantsane, East London, on Friday night. Southpaw Gwayana nailed Sishwane with a left cross for­cing ref­eree Andile Matika to call a halt to the bout at two min, six secs of the 10^th round with the chal­lenger lying face down on the canvas.

Sishwane paid the price for not tak­ing pro­ceed­ings ser­i­ously. He often danced around the ring with his hands by his side instead of focus­sing on the job at hand and showed a reluct­ance to fight the cham­pion. It was this lack of focus that allowed Gwayana to land the decis­ive blow, which ended the fight. The cham­pion improved his record to 11–3-1 (6 KO’s) while the chal­lenger dipped to 6–3 (1 KO) and, based on this per­form­ance, did not deserve a shot at a national title.

On the same bill, Tshepo Lefele retained his South African mini-flyweight title when he knocked out Mawanda Sineko in the sixth round. Lefele (16–4, 10 KO’s), was out­boxed by Sineko (20–10-2, 7 KO’s) through the first four rounds, but star­ted to rally in the fifth.

Early in the sixth round, Lefele staggered Sineko with a right to the head and then sent the chal­lenger crash­ing to the can­vas with a vicious right to the jaw prompt­ing ref­eree Allen Matakane to call a halt to pro­ceed­ings at 2:35 of the round. It was Lefele’s second suc­cess­ful defence of the title he won from Gideon Buthelezi in September last year.

There’s going to be plenty of action for fight fans to feast their eyes on this week­end when former International Boxing Organisation (IBO) junior light­weight cham­pion Zolani Marali (20–3, 13 KO’s) squares off against cur­rent WBF light­weight cham­pion Mlungisi Dlamini (20–0-1, 12 KO’s) for the IBO light­weight belt. Marali and Dlamini will clash for the vacant title at Emperors Palace, Kempton Park, on Saturday night in a tour­na­ment pro­moted by Golden Gloves.

On the same bill, undefeated Tommy ‘Tommy Gun’ Oosthuizen (pic­tured right) will swap leather with Tshepang Mohale (7–2, 6 KO’s) in a super mid­dle­weight bout, while Malawian Isaac Chilembe (13–1, 8 KO’s) will do battle with Frenchman Doudou Ngumbu (20–0, 9 KO’s) in a con­test for the WBC International light-heavyweight title.

South African ath­letes excel in England
South African half-marathon and 10km cham­pion Stephen Mokoka fin­ished second behind Britain’s Mo Farah in Sunday’s Great South Run in Portsmouth, England. Farah spent much of the race duelling with the South African, but held on to break the tape in 46 minutes and 25 seconds for the 16.09km course. Mokoka, who has had an excel­lent sea­son and was the country’s top fin­isher at the World Half-Marathon Championships in Birmingham earlier this month, fin­ished just a second behind Farah.

South Africans Rene Kalmer (pic­tured) and Tanith Maxwell fin­ished fourth and 13^th respect­ively in the women’s race, which was won by Ines Monteiro of Portugal, who clocked 52:32. Ana Felix was second in 53:58 with Australian Benita Willis third in 54:41. Kalmer was a fur­ther 30 seconds behind, fin­ish­ing in 55:11 and one pos­i­tion ahead of former world mara­thon cham­pion Catherine Ndereba.

Maxwell star­ted quickly and covered the first 5km in 17:22, but she was unable to main­tain the tor­rid pace and had to be con­tent with a mod­est 58:58. South Africans have a good track record in the event, which was won by Gert Thys in 2000 and Hendrick Ramaala in 2004.

The New York City Marathon will be tak­ing place over the week­end and Ramaala, cur­rently South Africa’s lead­ing dis­tance run­ner, is expect­ing a tough chal­lenge from Martin Lel when the 37-year-old lines up at the start­ing line on Sunday.

Lel hasn’t run a mara­thon since win­ning the London race in April 2008, but the 31-year-old is a class act and Ramaala won’t be under­es­tim­at­ing the Kenyan who won the New York event in 2003 and 2007, and has three London Marathon titles to his credit.

But Lel won’t be the South African’s only major oppos­i­tion. Ramaala will be up against the likes of Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot, a four times Boston mara­thon cham­pion and former Chicago Marathon win­ner, Olympic sil­ver medal­list and twice world cham­pion Jaouad Gharib of Morocco, defend­ing cham­pion Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil and Kenyan Patrick Makau, the second fast­est half-marathon run­ner in history.

Ramaala, who leaves for New York on Wednesday, has been in top form this year, fin­ish­ing fifth in London in April in his second fast­est time of two hours, seven minutes and 44 seconds and hopes to repro­duce his New York per­form­ances from 2004, when he won the race, and 2005 when he fin­ished second.

VW pair clinch rally title
Reigning South African rally cham­pi­ons Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries (pic­tured) suc­cess­fully defen­ded their titles on the Toyota Dealer Rally that ended near Bapsfontein on Saturday. The pair steered their Class S2000 BP Volkswagen Polo into second pos­i­tion on the season-ending rally, which was won by team-mates Enzo Kuun and Guy Hodgson in 1 hour, 43 mins and 35.9 seconds, with Fekken and Aries just 24.6 seconds adrift.

At the start of the rally only one point sep­ar­ated Fekken and Arries and the Toyota Castrol Auris team of Johnny Gemmell and Peter Marsh. The Toyota crew needed to fin­ish ahead of Fekken and Aries to score their maiden SA National Rally Championship titles, but this was not to be as the Auris’ engine blew up on Saturday morn­ing, end­ing a season-long challenge.

The event lost some of its allure once it became evid­ent that there would be no stop­ping Fekken and Arries from win­ning their second con­sec­ut­ive national cham­pi­on­ship. Rookie national cham­pi­on­ship driver, Tjaart Coetzee (Midas Subaru) and his co-driver Etienne Lourens tri­umphed in Class N4. It was Coetzee’s first class win on a national rally.

Lindani lands Highveld Classic after play­off
Lindani Ndwandwe (pic­tured) won his second Sunshine Tour title on Sunday when he beat Alex Haindl on the open­ing hole of a sudden-death play­off at the R500 000 Highveld Classic at Witbank Golf Club.

The duo fin­ished on 19-under-par 197 for the 54-hole tour­na­ment only for Ndwandwe to tri­umph in the play­off by birdy­ing the 18^th as opposed to Haindl who could only man­age par. Ndwandwe’s pre­vi­ous vic­tory came in the 2002 Western Cape Classic, so it was a long wait for the tall Durban Country Club professional.

After mak­ing just one bogey in his open­ing two rounds on his way to 16-under ahead of the final round, Ndwandwe dropped two shots in his final nine to allow the fast clos­ing Haindl to force the playoff.

Top 12 fin­ish­ers (South African unless stated)
197 — Lindani Ndwandwe 62 66 69
197 — Alex Haindl 63 67 67
198 — Doug McGuigan 65 69 64
199 — Alan McLean (SCO) 68 66 65
201 — Brandon Pieters 66 69 66
202 — Jacques Blaauw 65 71 66, Darren Fichardt 68 68 66, Ulrich van den Berg 65 70 67, Warren Abery 68 67 67, Neil Cheetham (ENG) 67 67 68, Grant Muller 66 68 68, Trevor Fisher Jnr 69 64 69

The next tour­na­ment on this year’s Sunshine Tour is the R705 000 Platinum Classic which will be held at Mooinooi Golf Club from Thursday till Saturday.

Photo Credits:
Arrows shoot down hap­less Ajax — Photo – Joseph Henyekane: Source – www.mtn8.mtnfootball.com
PSL sea­son hots up — Photo – Kaizer Chiefs: Source – www.ru.oleole.com
Safa replace one Brazilian with another — Photo – Carlos Alberto Parreira: Source – www.cosafa.com
Brilliant Bravo blasts Cobras — Photo – JP Duminy: Source – www.cricketworld.com
Triple ton Cook gets into the record books — Photo – Stephen Cook: Source – www.cricinfo.com
Dolphins and Lions fight to a draw — Photo – Loots Bosman: Source – www.mysportsblog.wordpress.com
Cavaliers and Leopards go one up — Photo – Shuaib Samaai: Source – www.daylife.com
Mixed res­ults for SA fight­ers over­seas — Photo – Tommy Oosthuizen: Source – www.flickr.com
SA ath­letes excel in England — Photo – Rene Kalmer: Source – www.chasingglory.org
VW pair clinch rally title — Photo – Hergen Fekken and Pierre Arries: Source – www.quickpic.co.za
Lindani lands Highveld Classic after play­off — Photo – Lindani Ndwandwe: Source – www.flickr.com

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