Boks down Wallabies to keep unbeaten record — and other sporting news

Victor Matfield

Boks down Wallabies to keep unbeaten record
The Springboks con­tin­ued their rich vein of form in this year’s Tri-Nations com­pet­i­tion when they defeated Australia 29–17 at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday after­noon. Bok fly­half Morné Steyn once again had an out­stand­ing game, slot­ting seven pen­al­ties and a drop goal for a per­sonal tally of 24 points. The Bok win was set up by another dom­in­ant dis­play by their pack of for­wards with the lock pair­ing of Victor Matfield (pic­tured left) and Bakkies Botha prov­ing par­tic­u­larly det­ri­mental to the Wallabies. The tower­ing duo dom­in­ated the lin­eouts secur­ing ample pos­ses­sion for their team and starving the Wallabies of this crit­ical com­mod­ity in the process ...

The Wallabies struck first with a quick fire second minute try from full­back Adam Ashley-Cooper, which was con­ver­ted by fly­half Matt Giteau to put the vis­it­ors 7–0 in front. However, the Boks remained calm under pres­sure and respon­ded soon after­wards with a well-taken try from ‘Man of the Match’ Matfield who chased a superb left footed grub­ber kick from cap­tain John Smit and col­lec­ted to dot down. From that point on the Boks stamped their author­ity on the game and never looked back as fly­half Steyn pro­duced another superb kick­ing dis­play to help sink the Wallabies. Granted, Giteau did man­age to score a superb second half try under the posts to give his side a glim­mer of hope, but it was ulti­mately to no avail as the Bok pack main­tained their strong­hold on the game to shut out the Wallabies. The Boks have now won all three of their Tri-Nations games and must be firm favour­ites to with the com­pet­i­tion with the All Blacks and Wallabies search­ing for answers but not find­ing them.

The Boks enjoy a three-week break before tak­ing on the Wallabies in the return clash at the Subiaco Oval in Perth on August 29. Flyhalf Giteau could be forced to miss that game for his shock­ing fore­arm charge on Fourie du Preez, which felled the Bok scrum­half heav­ily late in the first half. It is unclear whether the Bok man­age­ment will cite the Wallaby fly­half for his indis­cre­tion, but it is a dis­tinct pos­sib­il­ity and cer­tainly not unjus­ti­fi­able. Giteau was sin-binned for his efforts, but the nature of the chal­lenge smacked of pre­med­it­a­tion and could have res­ul­ted in a ser­i­ous injury for Du Preez. One hopes that the return game in Perth will not her­ald such unsa­voury incidents.

Scoring:
South Africa — Try: Victor Matfield. Penalties: Morné Steyn (7). Drop Goal: Steyn.
Australia — Tries: Adam Ashley-Cooper, Matt Giteau. Conversions: Giteau (2). Drop Goal: Berrick Barnes.

Cheetahs shock Bulls as Griquas remain on top

WP Nel

The Free State Cheetahs pro­duced the upset of the Currie Cup sea­son thus far when they shocked the mighty Blue Bulls 24–15 at Vodacom Park in Bloemfontein on Friday even­ing. The Cheetahs, who, until this encounter, were hav­ing a dis­astrous sea­son hav­ing lost all four of their pre­vi­ous games, pro­duced a solid all round dis­play to stun the Bulls who struggled to find their rhythm in the match. Prop WP Nel (pic­tured with No 17 jer­sey) had an out­stand­ing game for the home side and won the ‘Man of the Match’ award cour­tesy of his power­ful per­form­ance in the scrum and a superb 48^th minute try.

Frans Viljoen and cap­tain Adrian Strauss added fur­ther tries for the Free Staters with fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter com­plet­ing the scor­ing for the home side with three con­ver­sions and a drop. The Bulls replied with five pen­al­ties from the accur­ate boot of Francois Brummer, but a try tally of three tries to nil told the story as the Bulls slumped to a dis­ap­point­ing defeat against their less fan­cied opponents.

The Bulls’ next out­ing will be against high-flying Griquas in Kimberley on Saturday after­noon. Griquas remain top of the log after record­ing a nar­row 33–32 vic­tory against vis­it­ors Western Province in Kimberley on Friday even­ing. In a pulsat­ing encounter, Griquas pre­vailed by the nar­row­est of mar­gins in a game that could have gone either way. Nevertheless, the home side came away with the win to remain unbeaten in this year’s com­pet­i­tion, while Province will be dis­ap­poin­ted with their defeat, espe­cially as they man­aged to outscore their oppon­ents four tries to three.

Griquas remain well on top of the log with 28 points with the Sharks, who crushed the Leopards 44–15 in Rustenburg on Friday, in second place on 18 points. The Lions nar­rowly defeated the Boland Kavaliers 19–13 at the Boland Stadium in Wellington in another fifth round clash and their next game will be against the Sharks in Johannesburg on Saturday. In other upcom­ing sixth round action, Western Province take on Boland in Wellington while the Leopards do battle with the reju­ven­ated Cheetahs in Potchefstroom.

Records galore at SA Swim champs

Neil Versfeld

A myriad of records were broken at the SA Short Course Championships, which fin­ished yes­ter­day at the GC Jolliffe Swimming Pool in Pietermaritzburg. Neil Versfeld (pic­tured) stole the show on the final day by win­ning the men’s 200m breast­stroke final in a bril­liant 2:04.88 for a new national record. Versfeld shaved 1.90 secs off William Diering’s record of 2:06.78 and forced his rival into second pos­i­tion on the day with Diering only man­aging 2:07.51. Ronwyn Roper was just a little too good for Keri Plumstead in the women’s 100m breast­stroke, edging out her rival by a mere 0.22 secs to take the win. Roper’s time was a quick 1:08.90.

Lyndon Ferns cap­it­al­ised on Roland Schoeman’s decision not to com­pete in the 100m free­style final to win the event in 46.88 secs, with Hermanus Botha fin­ish­ing second. World 50m free­style record holder Schoeman broke the world record at the cham­pi­on­ships on Saturday night and was prob­ably still quite drained after his monu­mental effort and thus decided to give the longer event a miss. Super-star Cameron van der Burgh was also among the records on Saturday night, break­ing his own world marks in the 50m and 100m breaststroke.

Olympic gold medal­list Darian Townsend emerged vic­tori­ous in the men’s 200m indi­vidual med­ley in 1:53.22, com­fort­ably beat­ing Jay-Cee Thompson (2:02.48) into second place. Mandy Loots eas­ily won the women’s 100m but­ter­fly, but was tested by 20-year-old Bianca Meyer in the 200m indi­vidual med­ley. Nevertheless, the 31-year-old pre­vailed to take the event and capped off a great after­noon with another vic­tory – this time in the 200m backstroke.

The cham­pi­on­ships were a great suc­cess, yield­ing no fewer than four world records as well as a pleth­ora of world firsts in a host of multi-disability categories.

SA fight­ers make it three out of three

Bongani Mwelase

Mlungisi Dlamini, William Gare and Bongani Mwelase (pic­tured), all did South Africa proud in Bloemfontein on Friday night when the three pugil­ists defeated inter­na­tional oppon­ents to secure World Boxing Foundation (WBF) belts.

Twenty-seven-year-old KwaZulu-Natalian Dlamini was too slick for Franciso Lorenzo of the Dominican Republic and pre­vailed by scores of 117–111, 117–113 and 117–112 to retain the light­weight title over 12 rounds. Although Dlamini clearly deserved the win cour­tesy of his higher work rate and super­ior box­ing skills, he did not look par­tic­u­larly impress­ive against the 37-year-old vet­eran Lorenzo, who has exchanged leather with top-notch fight­ers such as Gary St Clair, Humberto Soto, Cristobel Cruz and Nate Campbell. Lorenzo was never vis­ibly hurt by Dlamini and made his younger oppon­ent miss on sev­eral occa­sions using body sway and deft move­ments of the head. With the win Dlamini remained unbeaten, upping his record to 20–0-1 with 12 wins inside the dis­tance while Lorenzo dropped to 33–6 with 14 vic­tor­ies via the short route.

William Gare chalked up another win in his long career when he out­poin­ted tough as teak Mexican Rigoberto Alvarez to retain the super-middleweight belt for the third time. Gare was pro­claimed the vic­tor by scores of 115–113, 115–112 and a most unreas­on­able 118–110 in a closely fought battle over 12 rounds, which saw the Mexican fight back strongly after being dropped in the open­ing round. Gare improved to 25–14 with 14 KO’s while Alvarez suffered his first loss to slip to 22–1 with 17 vic­tor­ies inside the distance.

In the third world title fight on the bill, unbeaten Bongani Mwelase improved his log to 14–0 with 12 KO’s when he out­poin­ted 35-year-old Hungarian vet­eran Attila Kovacs in another 12-rounder to cap­ture the vacant junior mid­dle­weight belt. Mwelase pre­vailed by scores of 116–111,115–112 and 117–111 in a close fought battle des­pite two trips to the can­vas for Kovacs. Granted, Mwelase did remain unbeaten and is now the proud owner of a world title belt, but he will need to improve his leaky defence if he ever hopes to take on the best in the divi­sion. Mwelase got hit with too many punches and is lucky that the Hungarian doesn’t carry the kind of punch­ing power a Miguel Cotto or a Manny Pacquiao does, oth­er­wise he could have found him­self out for the count against the wily Kovacs, who suffered his fourth defeat in 29 out­ings with 17 wins via the short route.

In another bout, Tshepang Mohale became the South African super mid­dle­weight cham­pion when he defeated Kgotso Motau on points over 12 rounds in an action packed bout which saw both fight­ers hit the can­vas. Mohale improved his record to 7–2 with 6 KO’s and gained revenge for a pre­vi­ous TKO loss to Motau in May of last year. The hard punch­ing Motau fell to 15–3 with 13 KO’s (eight of them in the first round), but a rub­ber match between these two evenly matched fight­ers should be a real crowd puller.

Sunette shines in Germany

Sunette Viljoen

African record holder Sunette Viljoen (pic­tured) pro­duced a spark­ling per­form­ance in the women’s javelin throw at the 20^th Lausitzer International Athletics meet­ing in Cottbus, Germany on Saturday. The 25-year-old South African recor­ded a superb throw of 63.02m to win her event ahead of Germany’s Steffi Nerius who defeated Viljoen in Leverkusen a week ago. It was sweet revenge for Viljoen as Nerius could only man­age a throw of 62.21m for second place. Viljoen has peaked just at the right time with the World Championships in Berlin just around the corner and she must be con­fid­ent of tak­ing home a medal for South Africa in this year championships.

Other South African ath­letes did not fair as well as Viljoen at the Cottbus meet­ing. Janice Josephs claimed fourth place in the women’s long jump with a leap of 6.45m with former South African ath­lete Karin Mey Melis, now com­pet­ing for Turkey, clinch­ing vic­tory with a dis­tance of 6.66m. Peter van der Westhuizen fin­ished sev­enth in the 1 000m race in a dis­ap­point­ing 2:22.33 after clock­ing a per­sonal best of 2:17.81 a week earlier in Stockholm. Van der Westhuizen will com­pete in the 1500m in Berlin, but will have to run very close to his best times if he is to pose a real threat to the competition.

South African sprint­ing has been tepid for some time now and so it wasn’t sur­pris­ing that none of our sprint­ers pro­duced a per­form­ance that is likely to make the Americans and Jamaicans sit up and take notice. Isabel le Roux, who will com­pete in the 200m in Berlin, did not par­ti­cip­ate in this event in Cottbus, but instead com­peted in the 100m and fin­ished a dis­ap­point­ing sixth in her heat in an ordin­ary 11.89 secs.

Ofentse Mogowane did clock a respect­able 20.98 secs in the 200m but all the other South Africans in the event struggled to record times that could threaten the oppos­i­tion in Berlin. The 4x100m relay team of Hannes Dreyer, Leigh Julius, Kagisho Kumbane and Thuso Mpuang fin­ished fourth in 39.83 secs well behind the United States (37.85 secs), Brazil (38.91 secs) and Australia (39.16 secs).

Rosy future in store for Hodge

Rosy Hodge

Costa Rica was the venue for this year’s Billabong ISA World Surfing Games and it proved to be a happy hunt­ing ground for East London’s Rosy Hodge (pic­tured) who fin­ished in second pos­i­tion in the final to secure a sil­ver medal for her coun­try. The 21-year-old South African surfed superbly to push American Sage Ericson of the U.S. and Frenchwomen Pauline Ado into third and fourth pos­i­tion respectively.

Hodge defeated former ISA and ASP women’s world cham­pion Sofia Mulanovich of Peru en route to the final and her sil­ver medal achieve­ment con­firms her stand­ing as one of the world’s best surfers. American Courtney Conlogue won the gold medal in per­fect con­di­tions while Durbanite Brandon Jackson placed fifth over­all in the men’s repechage event.

Maritzburg draw with Supersport in sea­son opener

Noah Chivute

A 42^nd minute strike by Noah Chivute (pic­tured) earned Maritzburg United a 1–1 draw with SuperSport United in the open­ing fix­ture of the 2009/10 Premier Soccer League (PSL) sea­son at Woodburn Stadium in Pietermaritzburg on Friday even­ing. Chivute’s goal can­celled out Morgan Gould’s header in the 24^th minute and enabled Maritzburg to earn a share of the spoils in an enter­tain­ing clash with both sides demon­strat­ing plenty of prom­ise for the long sea­son that lies ahead.

SuperSport’s new sign­ing Petrus Mahlatsi had an unfor­tu­nate start to the sea­son when he col­lided in mid air with Maritzburg’s Byrone Hendricks and was knocked uncon­scious, res­ult­ing in him being car­ried off on a stretcher towards the end of the match. It is not known how ser­i­ous Mahlatsi’s injury is but tele­vi­sion replay’s high­lighted the intens­ity of the col­li­sion and it seems doubt­ful that Mahalstsi will take the field for Maritzburg’s next out­ing against Bidvest Wits at the Bidvest Stadium on Wednesday, August 19. SuperSport’s next clash will be against Kaizer Chiefs at the Super Stadium on Tuesday, August 18.

Other PSL res­ults
Moroka Swallows 0
Golden Arrows 0
Jomo Cosmos 0
Platinum Stars 0
Kaizer Chiefs 0
Santos 0
Mamelodi Sundowns 2
Black Aces 0
Amazulu 2
Bidvest Wits 2
Bloem Celtic 2
Free State Stars 2
Ajax Cape Town 0
Orlando Pirates 1

The draw for the two-leg MTN8 semi-finals has been final­ised. Kaizer Chiefs will square off against Ajax Cape Town while AmaZulu will do battle with Golden Arrows at the Chatsworth Stadium in Durban for both legs. The first leg between AmaZulu and Arrows will take place on Sunday at 3pm and the second leg will hap­pen the fol­low­ing Saturday night at 8.15pm. Ajax will host Chiefs in their first leg encounter at Newlands on Saturday night at 8.15pm and play the return leg at the Orlando Stadium on Sunday, August 23 at 3pm.

Louis takes Suncoast title by two strokes

Louis de Jager

Louis de Jager (pic­tured) kept his cool on the final hole of the Suncoast Classic in Durban on Saturday to win the tour­na­ment by two strokes from Chris Swanepoel. De Jager’s tee shot landed against a build­ing in an unplay­able pos­i­tion, but rather than suc­cumb­ing to obvi­ous nerves, he retained his com­pos­ure to cap­ture his first tour­na­ment win.

De Jager obtained relief from his treach­er­ous pos­i­tion, but his free drop was unplay­able and he was forced to take another drop with a pen­alty to get onto the green in three. However, with Swanepoel three shots behind him in second pos­i­tion, de Jager had the assur­ance of know­ing he could make a double bogey and still achieve vic­tory. And so, he made sure of his two-putt bogey and punched the air in tri­umph. De Jager fin­ished on nine-under 207, two strokes clear of Swanepoel and three ahead of Adilson da Silva, Titch Moore, TC Charamba and Jean Hugo.

The next event in the Sunshine Tour is the Vodacom Business Origins of Golf Tour, which takes place at the Erinvale Gold Estate in Somerset West from August 12–14.

Scoreboard (Top 8 fin­ish­ers only. RSA unless spe­cified)
207 — Louis de Jager 68 68 71
209 — Chris Swanepoel 67 71 71
210 — Adilson da Silva (BRA) 70 71 69, Titch Moore 69 70 71, TC Charamba (ZIM) 65 74 71, Jean Hugo 71 66 73
211 — Lindani Ndwandwe 75 68 68, Hendrik Buhrmann 67 75 69

Photo Credits:
Boks down Wallabies to keep unbeaten record / Photo – Victor Matfield: Source – www.feverpitcher.com
Cheetahs shock Bulls as Griquas remain on top / Photo – WP Nel: Source – www.timesonline.co.uk
Records galore at SA Swim champs / Photo – Neil Versfeld: Source – www.daylife.com
SA fight­ers make it three out of three / Photo – Bongani Mwelase: Source – www.sowetan.co.za
Sunette shines in Germany / Photo – Sunette Viljoen: Source – www.daylife.com
Rosy future in store for Hodge / Photo – Rosy Hodge: Source – www.flickr.com
Maritzburg United draw with Supersport in sea­son opener / Photo – Noah Chivute: Source – www.zambianfootball.net
Louis takes Suncoast title by two strokes / Photo – Louis de Jager: Source – www.flickr.com