Sharks to face Cheetahs in semis ... and other sports news

Sharks to face Cheetahs in semis
The Sharks man­aged to over­come a spir­ited effort by Griquas in their final league match of the sea­son to qual­ify for the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division semi-finals when they defeated the dia­mond miners 45–30 at GWK Park in Kimberley on Saturday afternoon.

The KwaZulu-Natalians outscored their oppon­ents by seven tries to four and deserved their win, but will have to tighten up their defence con­sid­er­ably if they hope to pre­vail in Saturday’s semi-final against the resur­gent Cheetahs at the Absa Stadium in Durban. The Sharks missed 25 tackles against Griquas and con­ceded some soft tries with some of their defend­ers show­ing a dis­tinct lack of com­mit­ment. Griquas centre Barry Geel exploited these defens­ive frailties to grab a hat trick of tries with Sarel Pretorius adding another to ensure a bonus point for the home team ...

However, the dia­mond miners needed to fin­ish within seven points to secure another bonus point in order to qual­ify for the semi-finals after the Cheetahs had thumped Boland 55–10 in Wellington. They were unable to do so, going down by 15 points des­pite put­ting up a cred­ible per­form­ance against their more fan­cied oppon­ents. Griquas did in fact fin­ish with the same num­ber of league and bonus points as the Cheetahs after 14 matches, but the Cheetahs’ super­ior points dif­fer­ence enabled them to get through des­pite a ter­rible start to the sea­son which saw the lose their open­ing four matches.

Defensive frailties aside, there were a num­ber of pos­it­ives for the Sharks to take away from their match against Griquas. The KwaZulu-Natalians were superb on attack, with the cohe­sion between backs and for­wards par­tic­u­larly impress­ive. Fullback and cap­tain Stefan Terblanche (pic­tured), scrum­half Ruan Pienaar, wing JP Pietersen, hooker Bismarck du Plessis, eighth-man Ryan Kankowski and reserve hooker Craig Burden, who scored twice, all crossed the Griquas tryline, with Pienaar con­vert­ing five of the tries for a per­son­ally tally of 15 points.

The Sharks had the bet­ter of the scrums and secured more pos­ses­sion than their oppon­ents, and seemed able to turn up the heat and score whenever they pleased. In fact, with the excep­tion of their leaky defence and scrappy lin­eout work, it was a con­vin­cing per­form­ance by the KwaZulu-Natalians who were never really in danger of los­ing the match.

Pienaar’s per­form­ance was par­tic­u­larly encour­aging for the Sharks as the Springbok util­ity back had been entrus­ted with the kick­ing duties ahead of fly­half Juan Hernandez. The elu­sive scrum­half did not dis­ap­point his back­ers by prov­ing he can get the ball through the uprights if he puts his mind to it. Pienaar’s per­form­ance with the boot will also be encour­aging for Springbok coach Pieter de Villiers, who now has addi­tional options for his team’s end of the year tour of Europe and Great Britain.

Sharks coach John Plumtree will be a happy man going into Saturday’s semi-final against the Cheetahs who, des­pite a recent resur­gence which has seen them win eight of their last 10 matches, must start as under­dogs against the Sharks. The KwaZulu-Natalians defeated the Cheetahs in both of their league encoun­ters this sea­son and on paper are clearly the bet­ter team, how­ever they will have to tighten up their defence con­sid­er­ably against the Free Staters who pos­sess a lot of fire­power on attack with the likes of Fabian Juries, Jongi Nokwe and Lionel Mapoe prov­ing a head­ache for even the best defenders.

Whatever hap­pens at the Absa Stadium on Saturday after­noon, one can be assured that the con­test will be an enthralling one with no quarter asked or given. The prize for the win­ner will be a place in the Currie Cup final and no one can ask for a big­ger incent­ive than that. The Sharks, with 12 wins from 14 starts this sea­son, an arsenal of exper­i­enced Springboks and vitally import­ant home ground advant­age must start as clear favour­ites, but the Cheetahs with their never say die atti­tude are always dan­ger­ous and can never be dis­coun­ted. It should be a fas­cin­at­ing contest.

Scorers
Griquas versus Sharks
Griquas 30 – Tries: Barry Geel (3), Sarel Pretorius. Conversions: Naas Olivier (2). Penalty: Riaan Viljoen. Drop Goal: Viljoen.
Sharks 45 – Tries: Stefan Terblanche, Ruan Pienaar, JP Pietersen, Bismarck du Plessis, Craig Burden (2), Ryan Kankowski. Conversions: Pienaar (5).

Boland versus Free State
Boland 10 – Try: Danré Gerber. Conversion: Gerber. Penalty: Gerber.
Free State 55 – Tries: Heinrich Brussow (2), Jongi Nokwe (2), Tewis de Bruyn, Frans Viljoen, JW Jonker (2), Fabian Juries. Conversions: Louis Strydom (5).

Lions edge Province in Joburg thriller
Western Province won’t be happy with what tran­spired at Cola Cola Park in Johannesburg on Saturday when they went down 27–25 to the Lions in their final league match of the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier League sea­son. The loss means the Capetonians fin­ish second in this year’s com­pet­i­tion and will now have to face the mighty Blue Bulls at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday after­noon in the second Currie Cup semi-final. This is an unen­vi­able task to say the least given that the Bulls will field an awe­some side packed with Springboks and brim­ming with con­fid­ence after win­ning their last four games.

Indeed, the Bulls are on some­thing of a role after defeat­ing Boland, the Cheetahs, Griquas and the Leopards on suc­cess­ive week­ends. The Bulls gored the hap­less Leopards 61–24 on Friday even­ing at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace in Phokeng to fin­ish third on the log with 46 points – six clear of nearest rivals, the Cheetahs. The men in blue have now amassed a colossal 224 points in their last four out­ings whilst con­ceded just 94 and will undoubtedly start as favour­ites against Province on Saturday, des­pite hav­ing to travel away from their hal­lowed ground of Loftus Versfeld.

Province star­ted well enough against the Lions on Saturday, going 17–3 up in the open­ing quarter but they lost their way as the match pro­gressed with the Lions fight­ing their way into con­ten­tion with a dis­play of raw cour­age that seemed to sap the strength of the home side. With the score 25–24 in favour of Province with just seven minutes to play, livewire Lions scrum­half Chris Jonck (pic­tured) put his team ahead with a well-taken pen­alty, for­cing the home side to go for broke to secure a win and a bonus point for scor­ing four tries.

With just 31 seconds remain­ing they looked as though they might do just that when they were awar­ded a scrum and launched a back­line move­ment, which saw them carry the ball into the Lions’ 22. However, replace­ment flank Todd Clever, who plays inter­na­tional rugby for the American Eagles, bundled tower­ing Province lock Andries Bekker into touch to secure an excel­lent win for the Lions, who will be thrilled with their gutsy per­form­ance against their more fan­cied opponents.

The Lions had a less than stel­lar sea­son, but the way they fin­ished their cam­paign must have been very encour­aging for coach Hans Coetzee and cap­tain Cobus Grobbelaar, who was very happy with his team’s per­form­ance. “The guys played well, we said before the game that we had to start win­ning these tight games and show char­ac­ter, and we did exactly that today,” he said.

It was a res­ult that must give the Lions a lot of hope for next season’s com­pet­i­tion. They have come through a dif­fi­cult year with fly­ing col­ours and the res­ult is a team brim­ming with con­fid­ence after three excel­lent per­form­ances in their last three league out­ings against Boland, (won 88–15), the Sharks (lost 19–17) and Province (won 27–25).

Scorers
Lions versus Western Province
Lions 27 – Tries: Doppies la Grange (2), Dusty Noble. Conversions: Herkie Kruger (3). Penalties: Kruger, Chris Jonck.
Western Province 25 – Tries: Juan de Jongh, Joe Pietersen, Francois Louw. Conversions: Pietersen (2). Penalties: Pietersen (2).

Leopards versus Blue Bulls
Leopards 24 – Tries: Jovan Bowles, Shuaib Samaai, Theo van Wyk. Conversions: Cecil Dumond (2), Clayton Durand. Penalty: Dumond.
Blue Bulls 61 – Tries: Deon Stegmann, Zane Kirchner, Morné Steyn, Bakkies Botha, Wynand Olivier, Francois Hougaard, Gerhard van den Heever (2), Jaco Pretorius. Conversions: Steyn (6), Burton Francis (2).

Meanwhile, the 2009 Absa Currie Cup First Division final­ists were decided over the week­end when the Pumas defeated the Elephants 31–18 in Witbank while the SWD Eagles accoun­ted for the defend­ing cham­pi­ons, the Griffons, by the same score in George. The final will be held on Friday at the Pumas Stadium in Witbank. Both final­ists will be play­ing in a series of promotion/relegation matches later this month. Their oppon­ents will be the Platinum Leopards and the Boland Cavaliers who had a tor­rid sea­son in the Premier Division.

Both teams won only one of their 14 matches (against each other), and were merely can­non fod­der for the big­ger uni­ons, which could not have been good for their mor­ale. It will be inter­est­ing to see how they fair against the likes of the Pumas and the Eagles, who have both had excel­lent sea­sons in the First Division and must fancy their chances against the Premier League whip­ping boys.

Lame Bafana lose again
Bafana slumped to their eighth defeat in nine out­ings when they lost 1–0 to lowly Iceland in Reykjavik last night. The South Africans played with little pas­sion and clearly lacked the will to win by put­ting on a very dour dis­play against the Scandinavians. Viegar Pall Gunnarsson scored the only goal of the match in the 50^th minute, but other than that there was little to excite the spec­tat­ors in an excep­tion­ally dull match that was about as inter­est­ing as watch­ing paint dry.

The time has clearly arrived for the South Africa Football Association (Safa) to axe Bafana coach Joel Santana (pic­tured) who per­sists in apply­ing the same defens­ive strategy game after game des­pite a lack of res­ults. Bafana need someone to inspire them to score goals, which is unlikely to hap­pen under the ultra cau­tious and defens­ive minded Santana.

Bafana’s loss against Iceland comes just days after their 1–0 defeat to Norway, another team who are lightly regarded on the inter­na­tional scene. Bafana are clearly in urgent need of a major over­haul before they take on Japan on and Jamaica next month. Replacing Santana will go along way to kick-starting the pro­cess and it is imper­at­ive that this is done imme­di­ately. The World Cup is just eight months away and if Bafana don’t get their house in order very soon, they are likely to run the risk of being the laugh­ing stock of the world come June 2010.

Meanwhile, the PSL sea­son resumes after a short break of 13 days between matches with another full round of fix­tures sched­uled for the week­end. The pick of the encoun­ters is likely to be the clash between log lead­ers Orlando Pirates and fifth placed Santos at Coca-Cola Park on Saturday.

The Buccaneers are unbeaten in the com­pet­i­tion thus far with five wins and four losses from nine games and are sit­ting pretty with 19 points. Santos are hav­ing a good sea­son with four wins, three draws and two losses from their nine out­ings and will be look­ing to spring an upset against their esteemed oppon­ents. Kick off is at 8.15pm.

Fixtures
Saturday
Free State Stars vs Platinum Stars
Black Aces vs SuperSport Utd
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Kaizer Chiefs
Golden Arrows vs Bidvest Wits
Jomo Cosmos vs AmaZulu
Orlando Pirates vs Santos

Sunday
Ajax Cape Town vs Bloem Celtic
Moroka Swallows    vs Maritzburg Utd

Buthelezi fails to lift IBF title
Gauteng based Mthobisi Buthelezi (pic­tured) suffered the first defeat of his pro­fes­sional box­ing career when he was nar­rowly out-pointed by Stefan Stevanovic for the International Boxing Federation (IBF) Youth wel­ter­weight title at the Sport Hall Banjica in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday evening.

The 21-year-old Stevanovic (9–0, 2 KO’s) tri­umphed by scores of 97–94, 96–94 and 96–95 to win by a unan­im­ous decision in the 10 round bout. Buthelezi, also 21, had fought only mediocre oppos­i­tion in his young career which began on May 8 last year with a second round TKO win over Lucky Mavimbela, and there­fore was not expec­ted to give the more exper­i­enced Serbian a run for his money.

However, the South African pro­duced a cred­ible per­form­ance to keep the fight inter­est­ing, for­cing Stevanovic to dig deep to pull off the win. Nevertheless, the young pugil­ist will undoubtedly be dis­ap­poin­ted as not being able to bring home the IBF belt to South Africa after hav­ing trav­elled such a long way to meet the Serbian. Buthelezi (10–1, 6 KO’s), a former mixed mar­tial arts (MMA) fighter, will most prob­ably return to fight­ing domestic oppos­i­tion to sharpen his skills before he tries to have another crack at an inter­na­tional belt.

Puttick turns up the voltage to shock Otago
Opener Andrew Puttick (pic­tured), a late replace­ment for Graeme Smith, smashed 104 runs off 62 balls as the Cape Cobras carved out a con­vin­cing 54-run vic­tory over the Otago Volts in their Champions League Twenty20 match at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad, India on Saturday.

The Cobras notched up 193/4 in their allot­ted 20 overs, thanks to the efforts of Puttick, Justin Ontong (39 not out) and JP Duminy (33). Puttick bettered his pre­vi­ous Twenty20 best of 86 as he raced to his cen­tury off just 60 balls, which included 12 fours and a glor­i­ous six. Ontong got stuck into the Otago bowl­ers towards the end of the Cobras’ innings, club­bing two fours and four sixes in his 14 ball innings, which enabled the Cobras to get 67 off the last five overs.

With Otago hav­ing to score at nearly 10 an over to win from the out­set, they were always facing an uphill task. It wasn’t sur­pris­ing then that they could only muster 139 all out in response to their oppon­ents’ impress­ive total. Brothers, Brendon (21) and Nathan McCullum (38), were the only bats­men who made any sig­ni­fic­ant con­tri­bu­tions, and once Rory Kleinveldt dis­missed Nathan it was all over bar the shout­ing as Otago lost their remain­ing four wick­ets for the addi­tion of just 23 runs.

Kleinveldt, with three for 24 off three overs, and Duminy, with two for ten off seven deliv­er­ies, were the des­troy­ers in chief for the Cobras. The wins means the Western Cape fran­chise advance to the Super Eights stage of the tour­na­ment after beat­ing the Royal Challengers Bangalore by five wick­ets in their open­ing match.

CJ sinks Sussex
Some bril­liant fast bowl­ing by CJ de Villiers (pic­tured centre) ensured a mem­or­able win for the Diamond Eagles in their Champions League Twenty20 match against the Sussex Sharks at the Feroz Shah Kotla sta­dium in Dehli, India last night.

The lanky De Villiers grabbed two wick­ets in two balls in a super over tie breaker after both teams had scored the same num­ber of runs off their allot­ted 20 overs. Set 10 runs for vic­tory after the Eagles had scored 9/1 in their over, Sussex were blown out of the water by the impress­ive de Villiers who des­troyed the stumps of Dwayne Smith and Rory Hamilton-Brown with his first two deliveries.

It was a very sat­is­fy­ing win for the Eagles and de Villiers looks like a real find. The 23-year-old bowled accur­ately and quickly giv­ing the Sharks very few scor­ing oppor­tun­it­ies, and restrict­ing them to a rather mod­est 119/7. He was full value for his fig­ures of 2–20 off four overs and was well sup­por­ted by Dillon du Preez (2–23), Ryan Bailey (1–11) and Victor Mpitsang (1–20). Ed Joyce with 21 runs off 34 balls and Joe Gatting with 25 off 22 were the top scorers for the English franchise.

Needing to score at exactly six to the over for vic­tory, the Eagles were cruis­ing along on 72 without loss before Adrian McClaren was caught by wick­et­keeper Andy Hodd off the bowl­ing off Hamilton-Brown for 16. Morne van Wyk (2) and Boeta Dippenaar (7) quickly fol­lowed suit leav­ing the Eagles on 93/3 with just 22 deliv­er­ies remain­ing in the innings.

Rilee Rossouw was dis­missed for a well-played 65 off 62 balls with the total on 106 and it looked like the Eagles were going to fall just short of their tar­get. However, two fours off the last over by Ryan McClaren (14 off 13 balls) helped the Eagles to tie the scores and force the super over where de Villiers wrapped up the game for the South African fran­chise. The win booked the Eagles a place in the tour­na­ment Super Eights.

Titans versus Warriors match fails to get going
Sloppy pre­par­a­tion by the ground staff at Willowmoore Park ruined a poten­tially inter­est­ing SuperSport Series encounter between the Nashua Titans and the Chevrolet Warriors. The umpires aban­doned the match on Thursday after the Titans bowl­ers had sent down a mea­gre seven overs on the open­ing day.

At that early stage the Warriors were 17/1 before soft areas on the bowl­ers’ run-ups and follow-throughs forced the umpires to call a halt to pro­ceed­ings. A dan­ger­ous indent­a­tion had taken shape at the Chalets End and umpires Karl Hurter and Dennis Smith put their hopes in sav­ing the match on the use of the roller the fol­low­ing day.

However, its use depends on the decision taken by the bat­ting cap­tain, and Warriors skip­per Davey Jacobs (pic­tured) was not at all pleased with the idea, for­cing the umpires and match ref­eree Tiffie Barnes to aban­don the match. Jacobs’ decision is likely to anger the Titans, with the defend­ing cham­pi­ons unable to score any points from the game and also facing the pos­sib­il­ity of pen­al­ties in terms of points and money for the shoddy state of the pitch.

At this early stage of the com­pet­i­tion, with most teams hav­ing played only two matches, the Gesterner Diamond Eagles find them­selves at the top of the stand­ings with 22.48 points closely fol­lowed by the Nashua Titans on 21.72. The bizhub Highveld Lions are in third pos­i­tion on 16.10 points with the Nashua Cape Cobras fourth on 11.14, while the Chevrolet Warriors (7.50) and Nashua Dolphins (6.66) are in fifth and sixth pos­i­tions respect­ively, although the Dolphins have only had one out­ing. However, that will soon change when the KwaZulu-Natalians take on the Warriors at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth tomor­row in what prom­ises to be an inter­est­ing encounter between two well-balanced sides.

SA excel in gruelling World Champs
South Africa’s men and women teams had a very suc­cess­ful World Half-marathon Championships when both teams fin­ished in sixth pos­i­tion in Birmingham on Sunday. National cham­pion Stephen Mokoka (pic­tured) and debutant Rene Kalmer had excel­lent runs when they placed eighth and 15^th respectively.

Mokoka was par­tic­u­larly impress­ive, keep­ing up with the race lead­ers from the begin­ning des­pite the fast pace. The 24-year-old Mokoka passed the 5km mark in 14 minutes and 30 seconds, only three seconds behind the front run­ners, and although he had dropped an addi­tional 32 seconds back by 10km, which he passed in 13^th pos­i­tion in 29:29, he still man­aged to work his way through the field.

The South African moved up another pos­i­tion by the 15km mark and over the final 6.1km passed another four com­pet­it­ors to fin­ish eighth in 1:01:36 – a mea­gre 10 seconds off his per­sonal best. Countrymen Olebong Masire and Mbongeni Ngxazozo fin­ished 29^th in 1:03:13 and 36^th in 1:03:47 respect­ively. Eritrea’s Zersenay Tadese, who set a new cham­pi­on­ship record of 59:35, won the race. Bernard Kipyego (59:59) of Kenya took sil­ver and American Dathan Ritzenhein (1:00:00) cap­tured bronze.

Kalmer paced her­self well over the 21.1km course to fin­ish 15^th in 1:10:37, break­ing her per­sonal best by well over a minute. Although it was the 28-year-old’s first global run­ning cham­pi­on­ship, she handled the pres­sure well to go through the first 5 km in 16:09, 52 seconds behind the lead­ers and in 18^th position.

The South African improved to 15^th over­all after 10km in 33:03 and moved up to 13^th place after 15km in 49:47. However, the final 6.1km proved tax­ing as Kalmer dropped back to 15^th pos­i­tion and remained there until the fin­ish. Nevertheless, she will be pleased with her per­form­ance given that she was a novice who was com­pet­ing against the very best the world had to offer.

South African cham­pion Annerien van Schalkwyk ran the race of her life to fin­ish 20^th in 1:11:26, break­ing her per­sonal best by 23 seconds. Tiny and petite Poppy Mlambo paced her­self well to cross the line in 1:14:27, which was good enough for 40^th pos­i­tion and an improve­ment on her per­sonal best by 14 seconds. Kenyan Mary Keitany won the race in a record time of 1:06:36 while team-mate Philes Ongori (1:07:38) and Ethiopian Aberu Kebede (1:07:39) fin­ished second and third respectively.

South Africa too good for Japan
South Africa turned back a spir­ited effort from Japan to record a con­vin­cing 4–2 vic­tory in their hockey chal­lenge match in Cape Town on Monday. The South Africans played pos­it­ively from the out­set, using their tried and tested tac­tic of attack­ing down the flanks which paid dividends when Jennifer Wilson opened the scor­ing by tap­ping the ball past goal­keeper Ikuko Okamura.

However, Japan respon­ded with a goal from Mazuki Arai just seconds later, which her­al­ded an intense period of play as both sides pressed for more goals. It was there­fore not sur­pris­ing when Tarryn Bright scored South Africa’s second goal with a power­ful shot and home-town girl Farah Fredericks (pic­tured) added a third two minutes into the second half to make it 3–1 in favour of South Africa. Japan went fur­ther behind when Kate Woods scored with a drag-flick from a 57^th minute pen­alty corner.

Confident they had done enough to win, the South Africans aban­doned their attack­ing style of play and became thor­oughly defens­ive minded. Their strategy, although bor­ing, worked as the Japanese failed to close the gap, although they did man­age to score a second goal when a deflec­tion from Arai found its way over the line.

Their win means South Africa will play in Pool C in the second stage of the tour­na­ment, which will guar­an­tee them a top four pla­cing. They will also carry the points from this match for­ward to the next stage. In other matches, New Zealand defeated Spain 3–0 and Chile drew 0–0 with Azerbaijan.

Pieters claims third Vodacom Tour vic­tory
Brandon Pieters (pic­tured) shot a final round 69 for a total of eight under par to win the final tour­na­ment on the Vodacom Business Origins of Golf Tour at Simola Golf and Country Estate in Knysna on Friday. The 33-year-old fin­ished one stroke clear of Doug McGuigan and Jaco van Zyl to become only the second golfer to win three tour­na­ments in one year on the Vodacom Tour.

Pieters made some “cru­cial putts at the right times” to thwart the chal­lenge of Van Zyl who shot a superb final round of 67 and McGuigan, who needed to sink a seven-foot putt on the last hole to force a play­off with the Gauteng res­id­ent. However, McGuigan failed with his attempt, giv­ing a very happy Pieters the victory.

“It’s like a dream come true for me. I’ve got a goal before the end of 2011, and I don’t mind mak­ing a habit of this. This is a won­der­ful feel­ing,” he said. Pieters now joins an exclus­ive club of three-time win­ners on the series. The only other player to have won three tour­na­ments in one year on the series is Thomas Aiken in 2004.

The Vodacom Business Origins of Golf Tour is the main­stay of the winter sched­ule of the Sunshine Tour, and serves as excel­lent pre­par­a­tion for the main sum­mer sched­ule, which begins next month.

Top eight fin­ish­ers (South African unless stated)
208 — Brandon Pieters 70 69 69
209 — Jaco Van Zyl 69 73 67
Doug McGuigan 73 66 70
210 — Tyrone Ferreira 70 71 69
211 — Darren Fichardt 71 72 68
Trevor Fisher Jnr 67 72 72
Andrew Curlewis 69 70 72
Mark Murless 70 68 73

The next tour­na­ment on the Sunshine Tour is the BMG Classic, which takes place at the Glendower Golf Club from October 16–18. McGuigan will be hop­ing to defend his title against a qual­ity field and an enthralling three days play should await spectators.

Photo Credits:
Sharks to face Cheetahs in semis: Photo – Stefan Terblanche; Source – www.zimbio.com
Lions edge Province in Joburg thriller: Photo – Chris Jonck; Source – www.daylife.com
Lame Bafana lose again: Photo – Joel Santana; Source – www.blogs.reuters.com
Buthelezi fails to lift IBF title: Photo – Mthobisi Buthelezi; Source – www.joburgnews.co.za
Puttick turns up the voltage to shock Otago: Photo – Andrew Puttick; Source – www.content.cricinfo.com
CJ sinks Sussex: Photo – CJ de Villiers; Source – www.eaglescricket.co.za
Titans versus Warriors match fails to get going: Photo – Davey Jacobs; Source – www.flickr.com
SA excel in gruelling World Champs: Photo – Stephen Mokoka; Source – cuanruns.wordpress.com
Story title — SA too good for Japan: Photo – Farah Fredericks; Source – www.hokoa.com
Pieters claims third Vodacom Tour vic­tory: Photo – Brandon Pieters; Source – www.life.com

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