South African Sports News — 21 October

Cheetahs stun Sharks in Durban
Cometh the hour cometh the man and that man was none other than Free State Cheetahs fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter (pic­tured) who slot­ted a last minute drop goal against the Sharks at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday, to book his side a place in the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division Final.

Potgieter’s stroke of genius spelt doom for the Sharks who were lead­ing 19–18 with just one minute to go. However, a solid scrum by the Cheetahs set the plat­form for Potgieter to deliver the killer blow and ensure an excel­lent 23–21 win for the vis­it­ors. It was a dev­ast­at­ing blow for the Sharks and their loyal sup­port­ers who had a great sea­son with 12 wins from 14 league outings.

However, the Cheetahs, heavy under­dogs going in the match given that they were up against a team in top form and packed with Springboks, never read the script and fought like Trojans to send the home side tum­bling out of the com­pet­i­tion. Their hero on the day was undoubtedly the 25-year-old Potgieter, who con­trib­uted 18 points via a try, four con­ver­sions, two pen­al­ties and that excel­lent snap drop which killed off the Sharks.

The match was an ill-tempered affair that was played in a cauldron like atmo­sphere des­pite the over­cast and wet con­di­tions. At times things looked like they were going to get com­pletely out of hand. However, no punches were thrown and ref­eree Marius Jonker man­aged to main­tain law and order although he endured reg­u­lar boos from the home crowd for heav­ily pen­al­ising the Sharks at the breakdowns.

The Cheetahs made their inten­tions clear right from the kick­off, apply­ing plenty of pres­sure, which res­ul­ted in numer­ous errors from the KwaZulu-Natalians. Potgieter opened the scor­ing with a pen­alty after Sharks lock Johann Muller was pen­al­ised by Jonker. However, the home side replied with an excel­lent try from the ever­green Stefan Terblanche who pounced on a chip ahead from wing Odwa Ndungane. Scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar fluffed the con­ver­sion, but the Sharks were ahead 5–3 and look­ing threatening.

However, stiff res­ist­ance from the Cheetahs in the form of their excel­lent and determ­ined pack of for­wards, hampered the Sharks’ pro­gress. Prop WP Nel was out­stand­ing and put huge pres­sure on Beast Mtawarira, out-scrumming the Sharks power­house on numer­ous occa­sions. However, des­pite gain­ing the ascend­ancy in the scrums, the Cheetahs failed to con­vert their advant­age into points as Potgieter missed pen­al­ties in the 18^th and 22^nd minutes.

Pienaar put the Sharks 8–3 ahead in the 37^th minute with a well-taken pen­alty, fol­low­ing which the home side scored their second try on the stroke of half­time after a snip­ing run by left wing JP Pietersen, who spun a pass to flank Jacques Botes, who in turn threw a long pass in field to the hard run­ning Pienaar who went over for a bril­liant team try. The Sharks No 9 con­ver­ted his own try to put the home side 15–3 in front at the break.

However, if the Sharks thought the stuff­ing had been knocked out of the Cheetahs they were ser­i­ously mis­taken as the vis­it­ors staged a determ­ined fight back. After Sharks No 10 Juan Hernandez had struck a drop goal to stretch their lead to 18–6, the Cheetahs ral­lied with tries from Nel in the 45^th minute and Potgieter 14 minutes later to grab a 20–18 lead with 20 minutes to go. Pienaar put the Sharks back in front with a pen­alty to make it 21–20 only for Potgieter to land the fin­ish­ing blow to book the Cheetahs a place in the final.

“We showed a lot of char­ac­ter in this match and that pulled us through,” said Cheetahs cap­tain Nico Breedt. Indeed, the Cheetahs fought ten­a­ciously against their more fan­cied rivals and it paid off as the Sharks had their defences breached twice to set the stage for Potgieter’s knock­out punch.

Scorers
Sharks 21 – Tries: Stefan Terblanche, Ruan Pienaar. Conversion: Pienaar. Penalties: Pienaar (2). Drop goal: Juan Hernandez.
Cheetahs 23 – Tries: WP Nel, Jacques-Louis Potgieter. Conversions: Potgieter (2). Penalties: Potgieter (2). Drop goal: Potgieter.

Bulls scrape home against fiery Province
The Blue Bulls sur­vived a spir­ited fight back from Western Province at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday to qual­ify for the 2009 Absa Currie Cup Premier Division final. Victor Matfield’s men pre­vailed 21–19 in a pulsat­ing semi-final encounter with the ver­dict only being decided after Morné ‘Superman’ Steyn (pic­tured) landed his sev­enth pen­alty from as many attempts to secure the win for the visitors.

It was another bril­liant dis­play of place kick­ing from the 25-year-old Steyn who undoubtedly has the dead­li­est boot in world rugby. Not only did Steyn notch up a per­fect goal-kicking record on the day, he was also solid in defence and his tac­tical play was out­stand­ing. Without him, the Bulls would def­in­itely have been beaten on Saturday, after Province pro­duced one of their best ever Currie Cup per­form­ances against their more fan­cied rivals from Pretoria.

The home side were 19–18 ahead with just three minutes remain­ing and looked like they were going to get the win, but a high tackle from sub­sti­tute winger Sireli Naqelevuki on Jaco Pretorius cost his side a pen­alty from just inside their half and near to the right touch­line. It was the type of kick that would have intim­id­ated most goal kick­ers, but Steyn is in a class of his own as a place kicker and judged his strike to per­fec­tion to put his side up 21–19 with two minutes to go. The Bulls then held on for vic­tory and a place in the final against the Cheetahs at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on October 31.

Despite the ban­ish­ing of Bakkies Botha to the sin bin in the open­ing minute for dan­ger­ous play, the Bulls made a solid start to the game going up 6–0 after two minutes cour­tesy of two well-taken pen­al­ties by Steyn. Province tried to recover from their bad start but they were unable to pen­et­rate the rock solid Bulls defence and some aim­less punts from fly­half Peter Grant, scrum­half Dewaldt Duvenhage and full­back Joe Pietersen didn’t help their cause.

Steyn doubled his side’s lead after 18 minutes with two fur­ther pen­al­ties and the vis­it­ors were sit­ting pretty at 12–0 to the good with 11 minutes left in the open­ing half. However, Pietersen slot­ted a pen­alty after Province took play up to the fringes of the Bulls’ 22m area to reduce the defi­cit to nine points.

Putting points on the board seemed to ener­gise Province, who fin­ished the half strongly and looked like scor­ing a try for the first time in the match after tak­ing the ball through sev­eral phases. However, the Bulls defence held firm to deny the home side a much needed try although the dimin­ut­ive Pietersen did mange to slot another pen­alty to close the gap to six points on the stroke of half-time.

Province came out smoking at the start of the second 40 minutes and tried des­per­ately to find a way over their oppon­ents’ tryline only to have their efforts thwarted by the res­ol­ute Bulls defence. But Pietersen was able to land another pen­alty for the home side to make it 12–9 to the Bulls after 50 minutes.

Steyn then tried to put a damper on Province’s spir­its by banging over another pen­alty in the 56^th minute, but the Capetonians were hav­ing none of it. Nippy wing Gio Aplon threw a cat among the pigeons two minutes later when he out­paced the Bulls’ cover defence to dive onto a through kick to score a bril­liant try. Pietersen added the con­ver­sion to put Province 16–15 in front only for the ever-consistent Steyn to slot his sixth pen­alty of the match to put the vis­it­ors back in the lead.

However, if the Bulls thought Province were simply going to lie down and die, they were sadly mis­taken as Pietersen stroked over a 68^th minute pen­alty to give the home side a 19–18 lead. With 12 minutes to play it was anyone’s game and just when it seemed like time was run­ning out for the vis­it­ors, Naqelevuki’s blun­der provided Steyn with the oppor­tun­ity to win the match for the Bulls.

It was a des­per­ately dis­ap­point­ing loss for Province who came within a whisker of pulling off a major upset against the men from Pretoria, but it was not to be as Steyn sealed their fate with his deadly accur­ate placekick­ing. “Well done to Province for put­ting up a great per­form­ance, it must have been hard for them to loose after get­ting so close, but Morné (Steyn) kicked one hun­dred per­cent to see us home,” said an elated Matfield.

The Bulls will go into the final against the Cheetahs as clear favour­ites given their greater exper­i­ence and home ground advant­age, but the plucky Free Staters can never be dis­coun­ted, as they proved against the Sharks in the earlier semi-final.  Indeed, if the Cheetahs can repro­duce the type of form they demon­strated in Durban on Saturday, the Bulls will need to be at the top of their game to win. It should be a fas­cin­at­ing con­test in the cauldron that is Loftus Versfeld. I can’t wait.

Scorers
Western Province 19 – Try: Gio Aplon. Conversion: Joe Pietersen. Penalties: Pietersen (4).
Bulls 21 – Penalties: Morné Steyn (7)

Meanwhile, the Pumas were crowned 2009 Absa Currie Cup First Division cham­pi­ons on Friday when they defeated the SWD Eagles 47–19 in Witbank. The Pumas outscored the Eagles by six tries to one in a very one-sided final.

Scorers
Pumas 47 – Tries: Hannes Franklin (2), Ronnie Uys, Allistair Kettledas (2), Ashwin Scott. Conversions: Braam Pretorius (4). Penalties: Pretorius (2). Drop goal: Valentine van Wyk.
Eagles 19 – Try: Norman Nelson. Conversion: Gaffie du Toit. Penalties: Ricardo Croy (3), Du Toit.

Bucs suf­fer first defeat
Santos handed Orlando Pirates their first loss of the 2009/10 Premier Soccer League (PSL) sea­son when they defeated their more fan­cied oppon­ents 1–0 at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday even­ing. Erwin Isaacs’ first half strike was enough to ensure vic­tory for the People’s Team in a hard fought encounter between two well-matched teams.

Both sides con­cen­trated on defence rather than attack in the early going, which made for a rather dull open­ing 30 minutes. However, things star­ted to liven up a little after that with both teams hav­ing oppor­tun­it­ies to score only for poor fin­ish­ing to let them down. However, Isaacs (pic­tured) even­tu­ally broke the dead­lock in the 44^th minute after latch­ing onto a cross from Phikolethu Spelman to steer the ball past Pirates goal­keeper Moeneeb Josephs. The Buccaneers tried their utmost to score an equal­iser, but Santos ‘keeper Tshepo Motsoeneng was up to the chal­lenge and pulled off a num­ber of excel­lent saves to deny the home side a goal.

Santos will be very sat­is­fied with their win and will go into today’s fix­ture against Free State Stars as clear favour­ites. Pirates play log lead­ers SuperSport United and are likely to face an uphill battle against a side brim­ming with con­fid­ence after their 5–0 ham­mer­ing of Black Aces over the weekend.

Results (left to right)
Free State Stars 0         Platinum Stars 1
Black Aces 0             SuperSport Utd 5
Mamelodi Sundowns 2         Kaizer Chiefs 2
Golden Arrows 3             Bidvest Wits 3
Jomo Cosmos 1             AmaZulu 1
Orlando Pirates 0         Santos 1
Ajax Cape Town 1         Bloem Celtic 0
Moroka Swallows 2         Maritzburg Utd 0

Fixtures (left to right)
Today
Santos         vs     Free State Stars
Bidvest Wits     vs     Black Aces
SuperSport Utd     vs     Orlando Pirates
Bloem Celtic     vs     Mamelodi Sundowns
Kaizer Chiefs     vs     Moroka Swallows
Maritzburg Utd     vs     Jomo Cosmos
MTN8 final

Saturday
Golden Arrows vs Ajax Cape Town  (Orlando Stadium – 8.15pm)

Meanwhile, the South African Football Association (SAFA) has decided to axe Bafana Bafana coach Joel Santana fol­low­ing the Brazilian’s dis­mal record this year. Under Santana’s tutor­ship, Bafana not only failed to qual­ify for the 2010 African Nations Cup, but have also slumped to eight defeats in their last nine out­ings – a most embar­rass­ing record con­sid­er­ing the 2010 Fifa World Cup is only eight months away.

Santana’s assist­ants Pitso Mosimane and Jairo Leal have been appoin­ted care­taker coaches until a suit­able can­did­ate has been iden­ti­fied to lead the coun­try to the World Cup. Let’s hope they choose wisely as time is rap­idly run­ning out for Bafana to get ready for next year’s inter­na­tional showpiece.

Brilliant Rilee can’t save Eagles
A whirl­wind knock of 44 runs off just 19 balls from opener Rilee Rossouw (pic­tured) was not enough to save the Diamond Eagles from defeat against Trinadad and Tobago in their Champions League Twenty20 encounter at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday. The loss means the Eagles will take no fur­ther part in the com­pet­i­tion while Trinadad and Tobago will now advance to the semi-finals.

Batting first, Trinidad and Tobago pos­ted a tour­na­ment high of 213/4 with opener Adrian Barath top scor­ing with a quick fire 63 off just 41 balls. William Perkins (35 off 25), Lendl Simmons (40 off 25), Kieron Pollard (23 off 13) and Navin Stewart (33 off 11) all weighed in with use­ful con­tri­bu­tions to help the their side to an impress­ive total. The Eagles’ bowl­ers all suffered, with only seamer Ryan McLaren hav­ing any­thing to shout home about with 1/29 off four overs.

In reply, the Eagles could only muster 189/5 with Rossouw, Morne van Wyk (25 off 14), Dillion du Preez, (35 off 41) and Boeta Dippenaar (33 off 19) get­ting among the runs. Sherwin Ganga and Kieron Pollard were the des­troy­ers in chief, each grabbing 2/25 off three overs. Despite their defeat, the Eagles can hold their heads up high as they did very well in reach­ing the quarter-final stages.

Henry ham­mers hap­less Victoria
A superb unbeaten knock of 69 off 54 balls from Henry Davids (pic­tured) helped the Cape Cobras to a com­fort­able eight wicket vic­tory over Victoria in their B league Champions League Twenty20 match at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore on Saturday.

Davids notched up seven fours and two sixes in his innings to steer the Cobras past Victoria’s score of 125/5. Davids was involved in a third wicket part­ner­ship of 88 off 69 balls with JP Duminy (18 off 23), which pro­pelled the Cobras to 129/2 off 16 overs. The Cape fran­chise got off to a fly­ing start cour­tesy of a superb 29 off 15 balls from stand-in open­ing bats­men Derek Brand.

Victoria’s innings never got going with wick­ets fall­ing at reg­u­lar inter­vals. Speedster Monde Zondi wrecked havoc early on by dis­miss­ing open­ers Rob Quiney and Brad Hodge for ducks in the space of just three balls. Aiden Blizzard (22 off 16 balls), David Hussey (19 off 22), Cameron White (24 off 30), Andrew McDonald (29 not out off 22) and Matthew Wade (18 not out off 10) kept the score­board tick­ing, but in the end Victoria were at least 15 runs short of post­ing a score that would have threatened the Cobras.

Zondeki was the pick of the Cobras’ bowl­ers with 2/21 off four overs while vet­eran Claude Henderson was very eco­nom­ical with 0/19, also off four overs. The Cobras’ win means that the Cape fran­chise will now play Trindad and Tobago in the semi-finals of the com­pet­i­tion tomor­row. The match was reduced from 20 to 17 overs as a res­ult of a bomb scare and secur­ity con­cerns in the stadium.

Botha blasts Dolphins
The Chevrolet Warriors ascen­ded to the top of the SuperSport Series log after defeat­ing the Nashua Dolphins by 43 runs at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Sunday. The Dolphins, chas­ing 282 for vic­tory, were bowled out for 238 in their second innings on the final day of the match with Johan Botha (pic­tured) the des­troyer in chief with 4/69 off 23 overs. Botha was well sup­por­ted by flame-haired speed­ster Rusty Theron who grabbed 3/32 off 15.1 overs.

The KwaZulu-Natalians star­ted the final day need­ing a fur­ther 48 runs for vic­tory after resum­ing on 234/7, but only added four runs to their overnight total as Theron mopped up the tale with three quick wick­ets. Botha was named man of the match for scor­ing his maiden first-class cen­tury to help his side to their 281 lead on Saturday morning.

The all rounder scored 109 runs off 150 balls and shared a tenth-wicket part­ner­ship of 78 with Makhaya Ntini (16 not out) to boost the Warriors to 254 all out in their second innings. The Warriors had earlier scored 174 all out in their first innings to which the Dolphins replied with 147 all out. The Warriors next clash is against the bizhub Highveld Lions at Buffalo Park in East London tomor­row while the Dolphins host the Nashua Cape Cobras at Kingsmead in Durban.

All the teams in the com­pet­i­tion have played just two games thus far and it is the Warriors who top the stand­ings with 22.98 points clos­ing fol­lowed by the Diamond Eagles (22.48) and the Nashua Titans (21.72). The Lions (16.10), Nashua Cape Cobras (11.14) and Nashua Dolphins (10.66) are in fourth, fifth and sixth pos­i­tion respectively.

Meanwhile, Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced that the SuperSport Series match between the Nashua Titans and the Warriors will be replayed at St George’s Park from November 12–15. The CSA announced the decision on Thursday after they had car­ried out a detailed exam­in­a­tion of the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the aban­don­ment of the ori­ginal fix­ture at Willowmoore Park on October 8. The decision was reached after con­sid­er­ing writ­ten sub­mis­sions from the team cap­tains, the match offi­cials, the grounds­man and the CSA grounds consultant.

‘White Buffalo’ to take on Cuban giant
Former International Boxing Federation (IBF) heavy­weight cham­pion Francois ‘The White Buffalo’ Botha (pic­tured hit­ting the deck against ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson in their January 1999 bout in Las Vegas) will defend his World Boxing Foundation (WBF) heavy­weight title against Cuban chal­lenger Pedro Carrion (8–1, 6 KO’s) in Desau, Germany on Saturday even­ing. The South African will be mak­ing the third defence of the title he won by defeat­ing Australian jour­ney­man Bob Mirovic on points in July 2007.

Although clearly at the tale end of his career, the 41-year-old Botha (47–4-2, 28 KO’s) should still have enough gas left in the tank to take care of nine-fight novice Carrion who got a late start to pro­fes­sional box­ing after a long ama­teur career. The 39-year-old Cuban hasn’t beaten any­one of note as a pro­fes­sional and how he man­aged to earn a title shot against Botha is a mys­tery. Nevertheless, any man who stands 6’7’ tall and weighs in at around 120kg can­not be taken lightly and Botha will be wise to keep his hands up and his chin down against the huge Cuban.

Indeed, the 6’2’ Botha, who nor­mally weighs in at around 115kg these days, is undoubtedly the smal­ler man, but his greater exper­i­ence should see him through against Carrion, who turned pro­fes­sional at the advanced age of 36, effect­ively nul­li­fy­ing his chances of mak­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on the world scene.

Botha is an accom­plished fighter, hav­ing shared a ring with the likes of former world cham­pi­ons Michael Moorer (L TKO 12), Tyson (L KO 5), Shannon Briggs (D 10), Lennox Lewis (L TKO 2) and Wladimer Klitschko (L TKO 8). Granted, Botha never won any of those fights, but he is a high pro­file fighter that shared the ring with two liv­ing legends in the form of Tyson and Lewis and argu­ably one of the best heavy­weights act­ive today in the guise of cur­rent World Boxing Organisation (WBO), International Boxing Organisation (IBO) and IBF cham­pion Klitschko.

The South African briefly held the IBF title in 1995 when he defeated Germany’s Axel Schulz on points in Stuttgart, but was stripped of that belt when he tested pos­it­ive for ster­oids. He then went onto to chal­lenge Moorer for the IBF title in November 1996, but was bru­tally stopped in the 12^th round after put­ting up a tre­mend­ously brave effort against the hard-hitting American. Subsequent fights against the likes of Tyson, Briggs, Lewis and Klitschko kept Botha in the lime­light, but he faded into obscur­ity after fight­ing to a draw against lightly regarded American Clifford Etienne in July 2002.

Botha returned to the ring against Mirovic after a five year absence from box­ing and fol­lowed up that win with fur­ther vic­tor­ies against Ron Guerrero (W 12) and the cap­able Timo Hoffmann (W 12) to set the stage for Saturday’s fight against the unher­al­ded Carrion.

Syrian Manuel Charr beat the Cuban on points in his third pro­fes­sional fight and although Carrion has won his last six bouts, the qual­ity of his oppos­i­tion has been ques­tion­able. Indeed, it would undoubtedly be a major sur­prise if he could pull off a win against the vastly more exper­i­enced Botha, who will be look­ing to win impress­ively to keep his hopes of secur­ing one more big pay day alive.

Van der Burgh wins in Durban
Powerfully built Cameron van der Burgh won the 100 metres breast­stroke in a cham­pi­on­ship record of 56.60 seconds on the second day of the FINA / ARENA Swimming World Cup at the Kings Park Aquatic Centre in Durban on Saturday evening.

Roland Schoeman beat the 21-year-old Van der Bergh, who entered the com­pet­i­tion as the 50m and 100m short course record holder, in the 50m final on the first day of the meet. However, the defeat motiv­ated Van der Burgh to give a bet­ter account of him­self in the 100m final, which he did by bet­ter­ing his own record of 56.88 set in Moscow, Russia, in November last year.

The Pretoria born Van der Burgh is trained by Japanese breast­stroke coach Norimasa Hirai and his strong per­form­ances in Durban have encour­aged him to do even bet­ter for the remainder of the World Cup series. The next rounds of the cham­pi­on­ship are in Moscow (November 6–7), Stockholm, Sweden (November 10–11), Berlin, Germany (November 14–15) and Singapore (November 21–22).

Thrills and spills abound in Kyalami extra­vag­anza
There was plenty of drama at a wet Kyalami on Saturday in the WesBank Super Series finale, with a num­ber of cham­pi­on­ships going down to the wire. On a day full of out­stand­ing per­form­ances it was ulti­mately Sheridan Morais (pic­tured) and vet­er­ans Hennie Groenewald and Anthony Taylor who walked away with title honours.

Morais made South African motor­s­port his­tory while Groenewald and Taylor were involved in nail-biting cham­pi­on­ship fin­ishes. By win­ning the first heat of the Interfile SA Superbike cham­pi­on­ship, Morais became the first rider to win both the SA Superbike and Supersport cham­pi­on­ships in the same season.

The dimin­ut­ive Emtek Kawasaki rider had already wrapped up the Supersport title earlier in the sea­son, set­ting a world record of 13 vic­tor­ies in a row in the pro­cess. Going into the final meet­ing, Morais held a 24-point lead over vet­eran Lance Isaacs (PS Honda), who was the only other rider who had a math­em­at­ical chance of win­ning the cham­pi­on­ship. However, Morais put the issue bey­ond doubt with a bril­liant ride that earned him the win, and the title, ahead of the hard chas­ing Isaacs.

With the cham­pi­on­ship settled, race offi­cials decided to can­cel the second Superbike race when a tor­ren­tial down­pour made con­di­tions too dan­ger­ous for the riders. Morais decided not to com­pete in the Supersport races with the wins going to Clinton Seller and Ronan Quarmby.

In the closest pos­sible fin­ish to a cham­pi­on­ship, Anthony Taylor (Afrox BMW 330) won the Bridgestone Production Car title on a count-back from defend­ing cham­pion Johan Fourie (Indy Audi A4). Fourie arrived at Kyalami with a nine-point lead, but a ter­rible first heat squashed the Cape driver’s chances of victory.

Taylor came second behind Melville Priest (VMP Audi A4), with team-mate Robert Wolk third, to take a two-point lead into the final race. A wet track and per­sist­ent drizzle put Taylor, in his two-wheel-drive BMW, at a dis­tinct dis­ad­vant­age against the four-wheel-drive Audi’s and Subaru’s. Dawie Olivier (Sasol Subaru) drove a fault­less race to romp to vic­tory ahead of Leeroy Poulter (GP Nissan 350Z) while Fourie was third, Shawn Watson-Smith (Xtreme Audi) fourth and Taylor fifth.

The over­all res­ult was a tie on points between Fourie and Taylor who both picked up three wins dur­ing the course of the sea­son. However, the title was awar­ded to Taylor, who fin­ished the sea­son with five second places to Fourie's three.

There was also a dra­matic end to the Class T cham­pi­on­ship. Gary Formato (Nando's Ford Focus) began the day one point ahead of archrival Graeme Nathan in his Indy VW Golf Gti, but the VW driver won the first heat to gain the advant­age. However, the second race proved dis­astrous for Nathan after a col­li­sion ended his race on lap one, which paved the way for Formato to win the race and the title.

There was yet more drama to come when Groenewald, who looked to be out of the run­ning at the halfway mark of the sea­son, made a tre­mend­ous comeback to win his fourth suc­cess­ive WesBank V8 Supercar cham­pi­on­ship. Young Marc Auby led the cham­pi­on­ship by five points going into the Kyalami shootout, but Groenewald (Timken Jaguar) drove superbly to win the first heat, in wet con­di­tions, from Auby and his younger brother, Brandon, both driv­ing ELT Jaguars.

The second heat took place in appalling con­di­tions, but that didn’t stop Groenewald from pro­du­cing a ster­ling per­form­ance to move from ninth on the grid to first at the end of the open­ing lap. However, the vet­eran cam­paigner then exper­i­enced tyre prob­lems allow­ing the Auby’s to catch up, but Marc spun two laps from the end caus­ing him to drop to third behind Brandon. That sealed the cham­pi­on­ship for Groenewald who won three of the last four races to edge past Marc in the points standings.

The final cham­pi­on­ship to be decided on the day saw Mathew Hodges take the Engen VW Polo Cup title ahead of the hard work­ing Gennaro Bonafede. A win in the open­ing race and a third place in the second race were suf­fi­cient to see Hodges (PG Glass) edge out Bonafede (Champion) and his team-mate Devin Robertson in the cham­pi­on­ship stakes. It was a fit­ting end to a great day’s racing which, des­pite the atro­cious con­di­tions, proved very enter­tain­ing for the few spec­tat­ors who braved the inclement weather.

Arran aces Amashovashova
Team Medscheme rider Arran Brown (pic­tured) edged out team-mate Malcolm Lange and MTN rider Christoff van Heerden in a sprint fin­ish to win the MTN Amashovashova National Cycle Classic in Durban on Sunday. The 24-year-old Brown, who hails from Johannesburg, crossed the line a time of two hours, 19 minutes and 53 seconds while Lange and Van Heerden were cred­ited with the same time in the 106km race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

Swedish rider Jennie Stenerhag out sprin­ted MTN riders Lynette Burger and Marissa van der Merwe to win The Elite Women’s race in 2:44:53. Brown, who is only in his third year as a pro­fes­sional, has now set his sights on win­ning the Pick n Pay 94,7 Cycle Challenge in Johannesburg on November 15.

There was a chaotic end­ing to Sunday’s race when the motor­cycle with the TV cam­era­man on board rode over the tim­ing pads on the fin­ish line caus­ing one of the pads to spring up into the path of the lead­ing riders. The first seven riders man­aged to avoid the mat, but four oth­ers were sent hurt­ling through the air when their front wheels slammed into the pad caus­ing them to lose con­trol of their bikes.

South African road cham­pion Jamie Ball (Team House of Paint) was taken to hos­pital with sus­pec­ted back and neck injur­ies; African Road Champion Dan Carven of Namibia sus­tained a broken col­lar­bone; Shaun Ward suffered a broken elbow; and Dennis van Niekerk’s bike was totally destroyed.

Ball was later dis­charged from hos­pital after scans and X-Rays revealed no frac­tures, but accord­ing to House of Paint team cap­tain Dean Edwards, he was still in a great deal of pain and bat­tling to walk. It was sub­sequently revealed that the tim­ing pads were not taped down and although no one was ser­i­ously injured or killed in the incid­ent, an invest­ig­a­tion should surely be con­duc­ted as to why this was not done.

Canadian wins at Glendower
Canadian Graham DeLaet won his maiden Sunshine Tour event with a one-stroke vic­tory in the 54-hole R500 000 BMG Classic, which fin­ished on Sunday. DeLaet recor­ded a third-round 69 at the 6 914m par-72 Glendower Golf Club to fin­ish on 11-under-par 205 ahead of England’s Jeff Inglis in second place. It was the Canadian’s fifth tour­na­ment in South Africa, hav­ing fin­ished 12^th in the Joburg Open, 12^th in the Africa Open, second in the Vodacom Championship and second in the Telkom PGA Championship before his vic­tory on Sunday.

Inglis scythed his way through the field with a final round of eight-under 64, record­ing eight bird­ies along the way, but it was not enough to deny DeLaet vic­tory.  Third place was shared by Jacques Blaauw (pic­tured), Louis de Jager and Brandon Pieters. The 22-year-old Blaauw had a chance to snatch vic­tory, but a double bogey on the 18^th saw him slide back to nine-under for the tour­na­ment – a pity after a bril­liant run of six con­sec­ut­ive bird­ies from the sixth to the 11^th. Defending cham­pion Doug McGuigan fin­ished with a 69 to secure a share of sev­enth with Trevor Fisher Jnr.

Top eight fin­ish­ers (RSA unless spe­cified)
205 — Graham DeLaet (CAN) 68 69 68
206 — Jeff Inglis (ENG) 73 69 64
207 — Louis de Jager 65 76 66, Jacques Blaauw 70 71 66, Brandon Pieters
68 69 70
208 — Neil Cheetham (ENG) 72 66 70
209 — Trevor Fisher Jnr 69 72 68, Doug McGuigan 68 72 69

The next tour­na­ment on the Sunshine Tour is the R600 000 Highveld Classic, which will be held at the Witbank Golf Club from October 23–25. Defending cham­pion James Kamte, who fin­ished six shots off the pace at the BMG Classic, will be hop­ing to repro­duce the kind of form that saw him lift the title last season.

Photo Credits:
Cheetahs stun Sharks in Durban — Photo – Jacques-Louis Potgieter: Source – www.zimbio.com
Bulls scrape home against fiery Province — Photo – Morné Steyn: Source – www.sport24.co.za
Bucs suf­fer first defeat — Photo – Erwin Isaacs: Source – www.sport24.co.za
Brilliant Rilee can’t save Eagles — Photo – Rilee Rossouw: Source – www.ditsem.net
Henry ham­mers hap­less Victoria — Photo – Henry Davids: Source – www.sport24.co.za
Botha blasts Dolphins — Photo – Johan Botha: Source – www.beerandsport.net
‘White Buffalo’ to take on Cuban giant — Photo – Francois Botha: Source – www.upi.com
Van der Burgh wins in Durban — Photo – Cameron van der Burgh: Source – www.swimnetwork.com
Thrills and spills abound in Kyalami extra­vag­anza — Photo – Sheridan Morais: Source – www.quickpic.co.za
Arran aces Amashovashova — Photo – Arran Brown: Source – www.m.zoopy.com
Canadian wins at Glendower — Photo – Jacques Blaauw: Source – www.compleatgolfer.co.za

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