Weekly Sports Wrap, South African sports news — 21 September

Sharks in the driv­ing seat after win over Cheetahs
The Sharks cemen­ted their pos­i­tion at the top of the Absa Currie Cup stand­ings with a con­vin­cing 30–16 vic­tory over bogey team the Free State Cheetahs at Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday after­noon. The Durban out­fit bagged a full house of log points with an 80-minute per­form­ance that would have greatly pleased coach John Plumtree.

Although the coastal team never quite hit top-gear, they non­ethe­less dom­in­ated the game and wrapped up the four-try bonus point with a 78^th-minute touch down from reserve scrum­half Rory Kockott. Livewire eighth­man Ryan Kankowski (pic­tured), who won the ‘Man of the Match’ award, was instru­mental in set­ting up Kockott’s try and the Sharks’ second five pointer – scored in the 29^th minute by right wing Odwa Ndungane.

That try enabled the home side to surge to an 18–9 lead at the break for­cing the vis­it­ors to come back at the KwaZulu-Natalians with everything they had early in the second half. The Free Staters were rewar­ded for their efforts when the Sharks’ lead was reduced to just two points (18–16) within four minutes of the restart.

Things stayed that way until 13 minutes from time when a moment of inspir­a­tion from nippy scrum­half Charl McLeod helped the home side to seize the ini­ti­at­ive. The Sharks were awar­ded a pen­alty close to the posts, and McLeod, sens­ing the vis­it­ors were expect­ing a kick at goal, quickly took a tap to race through a host of bewildered Cheetahs defend­ers and go over untouched.

Patrick Lambie’s con­ver­sion increased the Sharks’ lead to nine points (25–16), and after that it was just really a ques­tion of who would secure the extra bonus points on offer. Thanks to the bril­liance of Kankowski, it turned out to be the Sharks, and that leaves the Cheetahs with plenty of work to do if they want to get into the top two and secure home-ground advant­age in next month’s semi-finals.

After second-placed Western Province’s demoli­tion of the Pumas in Nelspruit the even­ing before, the Sharks needed to make a state­ment against the Cheetahs on Saturday, and although the match was a lot closer than the sco­reline sug­gests, Plumtree’s out­fit should surely feel they achieved their objective.

Thanks to some strong scrum­ming from the Sharks, the Cheetahs were unable to lauch any mean­ing­ful attacks off the side of the scrum and with the homeside also excel­ling in the battle on the ground and in the recycles, the Cheetahs were pre­ven­ted from attain­ing any­thing resem­bling either con­tinu­ity or momentum. In fact, given the way the Sharks dom­in­ated pos­ses­sion, it was amaz­ing that the Cheetahs were in the game for most of the way.

Indeed, it was the vis­it­ors who opened the scor­ing through a Louis Strydom pen­alty before the homeside crossed the line when their big lock Willem Alberts crashed over after receiv­ingthe ball just metres from the Cheetahs line. Two fur­ther pen­al­ties, one a long range effort from inside centre Meyer Bosman, put the Cheetahs back in front before Lambie regained the lead for the Sharks with an angled penalty.

Then fol­lowed the Ndungane try and another Lambie pen­alty before the Cheetahs hit back with a try from lock Francois Uys, who forced his way over near the posts after 44 minutes. But McCleod’s 67^th minute try knocked the stuff­ing out of the vis­it­ors open­ing the way for Kockott to apply the fin­ish­ing touches two minutes from time.

Sharks cap­tain Stefan Terblanche (pic­tured with ball in hand) was a happy man at the post-match inter­views. “We really had to work hard for the win, but we played an enter­tain­ing game and it’s nice to be scor­ing tries again,” said the skip­per. Kankowski was equally pleased with his team’s efforts. “It’s awe­some for us to win and it’s always good to beat the Cheetahs, whether at home or away,” said the Sharks No 8.

The loss means the Cheetahs trail Western Province by six points with three matches to go, and the Bloemfontein out­fit are now going to have to rely on other res­ults going their way to lift them­selves back into the top bracket. The Sharks, by con­trast, now enjoy an eight-point cush­ion over WP, and a vic­tory over the Lions in Johannesburg on Saturday should be suf­fi­cient to ensure they top the final standings.

Scorers
Sharks 30 – Tries: Willem Alberts, Odwa Ndungane, Charl McLeod and Rory Kockott. Conversions: Patrick Lambie (2). Penalties: Lambie (2).
Cheetahs 16 – Try: Francois Uys. Conversion: Louis Strydom. Penalties: Strydom (2) and Meyer Bosman.

Other res­ults (from left to right)
Friday
Griquas 29 – Leopards 20 – GWK Park, Kimberley
Western Province 62 – Pumas 10 – Puma Stadium, Witbank
Saturday
Bulls 24 – Lions 21 – Loftus Versfeld, Pretoria

Upcoming fix­tures
Friday
Cheetahs vs Pumas – Vodacom Park, Bloemfontein – 7pm
Western Province vs Griquas – Newlands Stadium, Cape Town – 7.10pm
Saturday
Leopards vs Bulls – Profert Olen Park, Potchefstroom – 3pm
Lions vs Sharks – Coca-Cola Park Stadium, Johannesburg – 5.05pm

Currie Cup log (After 11 games)
Pos  Team          Pts
1.    Sharks          46
2.    WP               38
3.    Bulls             33
4.    Cheetahs      32
5.     Lions           31
6.     Griquas       30
7.     Pumas         17
8.     Leopards       5

Papi’s late header sinks SuperSport
A late goal from Papi Zothwane (pic­tured) earned Mamelodi Sundowns a dra­matic 2–1 vic­tory over Tshwane rivals SuperSport United at the Lucas Moripe Stadium on Saturday even­ing. The res­ult means Sundowns main­tain their unbeaten record in the 2009/10 Absa Premiership (PSL) com­pet­i­tion and join Ajax Cape Town at the top of the standings.

Both teams have won all three of their matches so far while United suffered their second defeat from three starts to leave the defend­ing cham­pi­ons in 12^th pos­i­tion on the stand­ings. Matsatsantsa looked like secur­ing all three points on offer after Dipsy Selolwane’s 35^th minute header, but a 86^th minute equal­iser from Mabhuti Khenyeza and a loop­ing header from Zothwane five minutes into injury time sent the Brazilians into rap­tures of delight.

SuperSport should have gone ahead early when Fikru Tefera pen­et­rated the Sundowns back­line and held off Esrom Nyandoro but, with only ‘keeper Calvin Marlin to beat, he put his shot wide of the near post. Tefera had another chance to score on 10 minutes when he latched onto a well-placed cross from Jabu Maluleke but fired his shot straight at the grate­ful Marlin.

Sundowns then began to dom­in­ate pos­ses­sion but their strikers Katlego Mphela and Surprise Moriri simply weren’t get­ting good enough ball to give them a chance of pen­et­rat­ing the excel­lent defences of Morgan Gould and Bongani Khumalo. Matsatsantsa, how­ever, looked threat­en­ing whenever they went for­ward and on 25 minutes, some slick passing gave Maluleke space for an effort on goal but his attemp­ted chip looped over the crossbar.

United opened the scor­ing 10 minutes later when left winger Lyle Lakay float­ing a cross into the Sundowns pen­alty area that was expertly headed home by the unmarked Selolwane. The Brazilians almost equal­ised just before half-time with Moriri head­ing on tar­get only for David Kannemeyer to clear the ball off the goal-line.

For much of the second half it looked as though SuperSport would main­tain their lead or even add to it, as Sundowns seemed unable to breach the cham­pi­ons’ defence. However, the Brazilians’ strength in depth paid off in the end as Khenyeza’s 79^th minute intro­duc­tion proved to be the turn­ing point.

The power­ful Khenyeza (pic­tured) net­ted the equal­iser four minutes from reg­u­la­tion time, find­ing space on the out­side of Jeffrey Ntuka and fin­ish­ing superbly into the far corner with a low, right-footed shot that gave ‘keeper Wayne Brown abso­lutely no chance. Khenyeza almost put Sundowns ahead on a couple of occa­sions as the game moved into injury time, but it was another sub­sti­tute, Zothwane, who net­ted the dra­matic 95^th-minute win­ner to seal United’s fate.

Other res­ults
Friday
Maritzburg Utd 0 – Golden Arrows 3
Ajax Cape Town 2 – Platinum Stars 0
Saturday
Free State Stars 1 – Vasco Da Gama 1
Bidvest Wits 1 – Orlando Pirates 1
Kaizer Chiefs 1 – Bloem Celtic 0
Sunday
AmaZulu 2 – Moroka Swallows 2
Black Aces  0 – Santos 1

Upcoming fix­tures
Tomorrow
Golden Arrows vs Free State Stars – Chatsworth Stadium – 3.30pm
Santos vs Mamelodi Sundowns – Athlone Stadium – 7.30pm
SuperSport Utd vs Ajax Cape Town – Super Stadium – 7.30pm
Bloem Celtic vs Maritzburg Utd – Seisa Ramabodu Stadium – 7.30pm
Platinum Stars vs AmaZulu – Royal Bafokeng Stadium – 7.30pm
Vasco Da Gama vs Wits – Bellville Stadium – 7.30pm
Moroka Swallows vs Kaizer Chiefs – Dobsonville Stadium – 8pm
Orlando Pirates vs Black Aces – Orlando Stadium – 8pm

Guyana no match for hungry Lions
An unbeaten second-wicket stand of 133 between Alviro Petersen (pic­tured) and Richard Cameron pro­pelled the bizhub Highveld Lions to an easy nine-wicket vic­tory over Guyana in their Champions League T20 match at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday. The Lions, cur­rently sit­ting in second place in Group B, chased down a tar­get of 149 with con­sumate ease and the vic­tory means they can still make the semi-finals.

The 24-year-old Cameron’s unbeaten 78 off 42 balls with five fours and six sixes was an excel­lent knock while Petersen was also in top form, scor­ing 57 not out off 38 balls, with six fours and two sixes. After los­ing fel­low opener Jonathan Vandiar for just eight in the third over, Petersen brought up the 50 off 43 balls as he played freely from the crease.

Petersen upped the tempo in the ninth over as he pulled medium-pacer Christopher Barnwell for six in an over that leaked 11 runs. Eleven more came in the 10^th over and 12 in the 11^th, after which Cameron opened his shoulders, bring­ing up his maiden Twenty20 half-century off 35 balls with his last 51 runs com­ing off just 20 deliveries.

Earlier, excel­lent per­form­ances with the ball from pace­man Ethan O’Reilly and left-arm spin­ner Aaron Phangiso helped the Lions take con­trol of the match. ‘Man of the Match’ O’Reilly bagged 4/27 and Phangiso 1/15 as Guyana spluttered to 148/9 in their 20 overs. Only cap­tain Ramnaresh Sarwan and Steven Jacobs posed any ser­i­ous threat with the bat although Christopher Barnwell and lower-order bats­men Royston Crandon (15), Derwin Christian (11) and Lennox Cush (19 not out) all weighed in with use­ful con­tri­bu­tions. O’Reilly trapped opener Travis Dowlin (seven) leg-before with his open­ing deliv­ery, but Sarwan provided some hope for Guyana as he thumped four fours in his 21 off 16 balls.

However, quick bowler Craig Alexander put an end to Sarwan’s antics, hav­ing the skip­per bril­liantly caught by Jean Symes at back­ward point with his first ball. O’Reilly (pic­tured) then removed Sewnarine Chattergoon for just four after the mis­timed a drive to deep mid-on.

With Guyana 53/3 after seven overs, left-arm spin­ner Phangiso went about his busi­ness of strangling the bats­men, send­ing down his four overs for just 15 runs and dis­miss­ing Jacobs, caught at long-off, for 34 (37 balls). Some poor run­ning between the wick­ets saw the demise of Barnwell (11) and Esaun Crandon for three as Guyana slid from 79/3 to 88/6. In fact, had it not been for the efforts of Crandon, Christian and Cush towards the end of the innings the Guyana attack would have had noth­ing to bowl at.

The Lions take on the Royal Challengers Bangalore in Johannesburg today in their next out­ing and a win will put them in the semi-finals, which take place on Friday and Saturday. Today’s match get under­way at 5.30pm.

The other South African team in the tour­na­ment, the Chevrolet Warriors, play their final pool game against the Chennai Super Kings in Port Elizabeth tomor­row. Davey Jacobs’ men top the stand­ings in Group A and are almost cer­tain of a place in the semi-finals regard­less of the out­come of tomorrow’s match.

Other res­ults (SA teams in bold)
Last Tuesday
South Australian Redbacks beat the Mumbai Indians by five wick­ets
Wednesday
Victorian Bushrangers beat the Central Stags by seven wick­ets
Chennai Super Kings beat the Wayamba Elevens by 97 runs
Thursday
Mumbai Indians beat Guyana by 31 runs
Friday
South Australian Redbacks beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by eight wick­ets
Saturday
Chevrolet Warriors beat the Central Stags by six wick­ets
Victorian Bushrangers beat the Chennai Super Kings on a super-over after the match was tied
Sunday
Mumbai Indians beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by two runs
Yesterday
Victorian Bushrangers beat the Wayamba Elevens by eight wickets

Upcoming fix­tures (SA teams in bold)
Today
South Australian Redbacks vs Guyana – Johannesburg – 1.30pm
Bizhub Highveld Lions vs Royal Challengers Bangalore – Johannesburg – 5.30pm
Tomorrow
Wayamba Elevens vs Central Stags – Port Elizabeth – 1.30pm
Chevrolet Warriors vs Chennai Super Kings – Port Elizabeth – 5.30pm

‘Black Panther’ defies age to retain IBO title
Experience pre­vailed over youth at Emperors Palace in Kempton Park on Saturday night when 39-year-old ring vet­eran Lovemore ‘The Black Panther’ Ndou (pic­tured) out­hustled 28-year-old chal­lenger Bongani ‘Cyclone’ Mwelase to retain his International Boxing Organisation (IBO) wel­ter­weight title.  In the main event of the Golden Gloves Promotions bill, the cagey Ndou got the nod on two of the three judges’ score­cards (115–113 and 117–112) with a third offi­cial inex­plic­ably see­ing it 115–113 in favour of the challenger.

I had the cham­pion a clear four-point win­ner (116–112) as he piled up the points cour­tesy of his super­ior workrate and punch out­put. The heavy-handed Mwelase, although always com­pet­it­ive, lacked the neces­sary urgency and intens­ity to win the title and will have to up his workrate con­sid­er­ably if he ever hopes to emerge vic­tori­ous against the big names in the division.

After fall­ing behind in the first half of the fight the lanky chal­lenger began to get his jab work­ing from the sev­enth round onwards and for a while it seemed as though he might be able to claw his way back into the fight. However, he was unable to main­tain any mean­ing­ful pres­sure on the super­fit cham­pion who fought with the intens­ity of a man 15 years younger.

Using all the exper­i­ence obtained in a 17-year career which has seen him com­pete favour­ably with some of the best fight­ers in the busi­ness, the 5’8’ Ndou shrewdly cut the dis­tance between him­self and the 6’0’ Mwelase, counter-punching in mas­terly fash­ion and doing just enough to shade the rounds against his big­ger foe.

The nature of the fight was summed up in the 12^th and final round when Mwelase, a south­paw, began to show­boat and backpeddle instead of throw­ing everything into the attack. Put it down to inex­per­i­ence but it was a stu­pid move to say the least and prob­ably cost him at least a draw.

Ndou upped his record to 48 wins (31 KO’s) against 11 defeats and two draws while Mwelase slid to 14–1 (12 KO’s) although he would have gained valu­able exper­i­ence against one of the best wel­ter­weights in the world. The cham­pion, who left South Africa in 1996 to cam­paign in Australia, could face former IBO and International Boxing Federation (IBF) wel­ter­weight title holder Isaac ‘The Angel’ Hlatshwayo in his next fight.

Heavyweight pro­spect Flo Simba (pic­tured right) provided some fire­works when he dis­patched Ghanain Isaac Paakwesi Ankrah (1–4; 1 KO) at 2 min, 51 secs of the first round to move to 7–0 (6 KO’s).  The 20-year-old Simba is a power­ful puncher with quick hands but his hand­lers will have to start match­ing him with bet­ter qual­ity opposition.

Lightweight Jason ‘Badman’ Bedeman improved to 13–0-2 (10 KO’s) when he out­poin­ted Ghanaian Sam Amoako (6–3; 2 KO’s) over 10 rounds, but  although the 21-year-old banger from Johannesburg is mak­ing steady pro­gress in his career, any thoughts of a pro­posed fight with former IBO junior light­weight cham­pion Ji-Hoon Kim must surely be out of the question.

The Korean slug­ger has won 13 of his last 14 fights, includ­ing knock­out vic­tor­ies over accom­plished fight­ers such as Zolani Marali and Tyrone Harris and would make mince­ment of the young Bedeman at this early stage of his career. Bedeman’s hand­lers would be well advised to match their charge against more mod­est com­pet­i­tion before throw­ing him in with a hit­ter like Kim who is cap­able of knock­ing out almost any­one on his day.

Earlier, south­paw Gideon Buthelezi moved his record to 11–2 (4 KO’s) with a com­fort­able points vic­tory over the dimin­ut­ive Julius Alcos (15–8; 3 KO’s) of the Philippines in a 10-round catch­weight con­test, while another undefeated heavy­weight pro­spect Johnny Muller (7–0-2; 5 KO’s) laboured to a six round draw with Elvis Moyo (0–3-1; 0 KO’s).

Germany claim white­wash des­pite fight­back from De Voest
Rik de Voest (pic­tured) exten­ded Florian Mayer to three sets, after put­ting up a determ­ined fight, but South Africa still went down 5–0 to Germany on the final day of the Davis Cup World Group play­off in Stuttgart on Sunday. The Germans had already secured vic­tory after Saturday’s doubles rub­ber, but still came out fir­ing on Sunday with Mayer notch­ing up a 6–3, 6–7 (10/8), 6–2 win over a plucky De Voest while Andreas Beck eased to a 7–5, 6–2 win over Izak van der Merwe.

World No 45 Mayer, ranked 160 places ahead of De Voest, broke as early as the first game of the match and looked set to run away with pro­ceed­ings. And while the German No 2 won the first set, De Voest put up an impress­ive fight in the second.

With Mayer at match point, lead­ing 40–15 in the game and 5–4 in the set, the 30-year-old De Voest came roar­ing back and stretched it to a tie-break, which he won after a tre­mend­ous battle. Mayer broke twice, how­ever, in the final set to secure the white­wash for the hosts.

“He’s not your stand­ard, ortho­dox clay­court player, and when he hits the ball well, he’s just too good. He had the beat­ing of me in the first set, but then I star­ted swinging a lot more and I man­aged to make a match of it,” said De Voest.

Beck had earlier given Germany a 4–0 lead going into the final match, defeat­ing Van der Merwe, the vis­it­ing team’s No 1, in straight sets. Van der Merwe was ini­tially expec­ted to square off against German No 1 Philipp Kohlschreiber, but with the tie already decided, the lat­ter was replaced by Beck.

Van der Merwe took con­trol early on when he broke serve in the second game of the first set, which involved some lengthy ral­lies. But the South African became vis­ibly frus­trated, ini­tially with a line call and then with a rest­less cam­era­man, and Beck broke twice to win the set.

The German broke twice again in the second and went on to win the match con­vin­cingly. Germany will play in the World Group in 2011 for the sixth year in suc­ces­sion while South Africa will play again in Group 1 of the Europe/Africa Zone.

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Photo Credits:
Photo – Ryan Kankowski: Source – www.zimbio.com
Photo – Stefan Terblanche: Source – www.zimbio.com
Photo – Papi Zothwane: Source – www.soccerladuma.co.za
Photo – Mabhuti Khenyeza: Source – www.timeslive.co.za
Photo – Alviro Petersen: Source – www.standardbankcricket.com
Photo – Ethan O’Reilly: Source – Gallo Images
Photo – Lovemore Ndou: Source – Gallo Images
Photo – Flo Simba: Source – www.goldengloves.co.za
Photo – Rik de Voest: Source – www.news.yahoo.com