South African Sports News – 24 August

Late try burst sinks cour­ageous Boks
Late tries from skip­per Richie McCaw and wing Israel Dagg con­demned South Africa to a heart­break­ing 29–22 defeat against New Zealand at the FNB Stadium in Soweto on Saturday night. The All Blacks’ win secured them the 2010 Vodacom Tri-Nations title and sent the Springboks, who have not been able to win a match in the com­pet­i­tion thus far, into the throes of depression.

With New Zealand trail­ing 22–17 with just two and a half minutes remain­ing it seemed as though the Boks were head­ing for vic­tory, but sadly their defence just couldn’t hold out against a late onslought from the men in black. After a series of phases the All Blacks spun the ball down the line to an unmarked McCaw, and the rugged flanker was able to shrug off the atten­tions of Bryan Habana and Jean de Villiers to squeeze in at the corner flag.

Flyhalf Dan Carter, who did not have a great out­ing with the boot, pushed the con­ver­sion wide and with just a minute remain­ing it looked as though the Boks were going to get a draw. However, instead of play­ing it safe and being con­tent with a draw, the All Blacks probed for an open­ing and they found one when power­ful centre Ma’a Nonu brushed off a tackle from exhausted Bok skip­per John Smit (pic­tured) and raced towards the tryline.

With only Bok full­back Gio Aplon in front of him and Dagg on his out­side, Nonu flung a pass to the jubil­ant winger who ran in the win­ning try. Dagg’s five pointer stunned the Bok sup­port­ers and a deathly silence fell upon the FNB Stadium. Carter slot­ted the con­ver­sion to com­plete the scor­ing while a gut­ted Smit, play­ing in his 100^th Test match, could only look on and won­der where it all went wrong.

Although the 32-year-old Bok cap­tain was dev­ast­ated at miss­ing that tackle on Nonu, truth be told it should not have neces­sar­ily led to the South Africans con­ced­ing a try. JP Pietersen, who was mark­ing Dagg, had earlier showed signs of dis­tress, and had clearly picked up an injury of some sort, but instead of being replaced, the tall winger was allowed to remain on the field.

The mana­gerial blun­der meant that Dagg was able to run away from the strug­gling Pietersen and col­lect the final pass from Nonu unchal­lenged. Had the Bok brains trust replaced Pietersen with the likes of Wynand Olivier, it is likely the try would have been pre­ven­ted, deny­ing the All Blacks vic­tory and sav­ing the Boks from an agon­ising defeat.

However, the New Zealanders must be given credit for their win against a much-improved Bok team that pres­sured them into a glut of mis­takes. To come back like they did in front of 90000 Bok fans was a fant­astic achieve­ment, and it under­lined that this All Black side has cham­pi­on­ship qualities.

The Boks played this game with a tre­mend­ous amount of pride and pas­sion and were a dif­fer­ent side to the shoddy and dis­or­gan­ised out­fit that were thrased in New Zealand and Australia in the away leg of the com­pet­i­tion. Yet this pride and pas­sion was not enough to secure the Boks vic­tory against a New Zealand team that has now won 14 Test matches on the trot.

To beat the All Blacks you have to play for the full 80 minutes and with many of the Bok play­ers already gasp­ing for air 25 minutes from the hooter, it was only sheer will­power that was keep­ing Smit’s men on their feet towards the end. In the end that will­power proved inad­equate as the Boks, who led 16–14 at the break, faded badly in the clos­ing minutes allow­ing the New Zealanders to surge to victory.

“I felt we had done enough to win, but my missed tackle and some silly mis­takes, which gave them a couple of three point­ers, cost us the match,” said a crest­fal­len Smit. The look of anguish on the Boks skipper’s face resembled that of a stock­broker who had just lost everything in a Wall Street crash and one could not help feel­ing sorry for the like­able hooker who played his heart out.

Bok coach Peter de Villiers (pic­tured) did not put the blame for the defeat on his cap­tain. “Two bad kicks and we were under pres­sure for the last couple of minutes. We also made a few bad decisions at key moments which cost us the game,” said De Villiers when asked to com­ment on where it went wrong for his side.

The Boks’ next Tri-Nations out­ing is against Australia at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria on Saturday and the men in green and gold will be bolstered by the return of full­back Frans Steyn and centre Jaque Fourie. Steyn has been released to play for the Boks by his French club side Racing Metro and arrived in the coun­try over the weekend.

Fourie returns after serving a four week ban for a dan­ger­ous tackle in the Boks’ 30–13 defeat to the Wallabies in Brisbane last month. The 1.93m,
105 kg centre is always a force to be reckoned with in the mid­field and is likely to replace Juan de Jongh at out­side centre on Saturday. The match kicks off at 5pm.

Scorers
New Zealand 29 – Tries: Tony Woodcock, Richie McCaw, Israel Dagg. Conversion: Dan Carter. Penalties: Carter (4).
South Africa 22 – Try: Schalk Burger. Conversion: Morne Steyn. Penalties: Steyn (5).

Tri-Nations log
Pos      Team                Pts
1.         New Zealand      23
2.         Australia            4
3.         South Africa       1

Sharks down WP to take Currie Cup lead
Western Province suffered the first defeat of their 2010 Absa Currie Cup cam­paign when they went down 27–16 to the Sharks at the Absa Stadium in Durban on Saturday even­ing. The win saw the KwaZulu-Natal out­fit move to the top of the Currie Cup stand­ings with 30 points from seven out­ings with WP in second spot on 27 – also from seven starts.

The home side ran in two tries to one in an excel­lent all-round dis­play that bodes well for their cham­pi­on­ship aspir­a­tions. The hosts held a com­mand­ing 18-point lead in the second half before WP replace­ment flank Nick Koster crashed over in the clos­ing seconds to provide a meas­ure of respect­ab­il­ity to the scoreline.

Sharks eighth­man Ryan Kankowski (pic­tured) had an excel­lent match, scor­ing a try and being involved in another from flank Keegan Daniel. Hooker Bismarck Du Plessis, who was named man of the match, and prop Tendai ‘Beast’ Mtawarira also fea­tured prom­in­ently in the homeside’s win. Flyhalf Pat Lambie con­tin­ues to improve with every game and the 19-year-old’s con­tri­bu­tion of 14 points via four pen­al­ties and a con­ver­sion was invaluable.

The first 20 minutes belonged to the hosts as they dom­in­ated ter­rit­ory and pos­ses­sion but had only a Lambie pen­alty to show for their efforts. The Sharks were being frus­trated by a WP defence that had only leaked six tries in six matches this sea­son, and slowly but surely the vis­it­ors began to fight their way back into the match.

Flyhalf Willem de Waal was his usual depend­able self with the boot as he slot­ted two pen­al­ties to give WP a 6–3 lead with only four minutes of the half remain­ing. However, a minute later the KwaZulu-Natalians engin­eered a superb try as Kankowski flung an inside pass to Daniel who scythed through the defence before feed­ing right wing Odwa Ndungane who strolled over the tryline untouched.

Lambie missed the con­ver­sion, but the home side had still taken a nar­row 8–6 lead. A third pen­alty from De Waal on the hooter put WP back in front and set the stage for an intriguing second half.

The Sharks came out swinging after the inter­val and were rewar­ded for their pos­it­ive approach when Kankowski held onto a pass from scrum­half Charl McLeod five metres from WP’s tryline. The elu­sive No 8 then sidestepped his way through four defend­ers to score an excel­lent try that was con­ver­ted by Lambie.

The prodi­giously tal­en­ted Sharks No 10 then nailed three suc­cess­ive pen­al­ties before vet­eran centre Stefan Terblanche (pic­tured) secured vic­tory for the hosts with a 35m drop goal on 76 minutes. Koster’s late try was small con­sol­a­tion for WP who left Durban without scor­ing a single log point.

The Sharks host fourth placed Griquas on Friday and will have to face the dia­mond miners without the assist­ance of attack­ing full­back Louis Ludik who suffered a con­cus­sion in Saturday’s match. Griquas are the only side to have beaten the Sharks this sea­son, sur­pris­ing the KwaZulu-Natalians 40–34 in Kimberley early last month.

Since then the Sharks have reeled off six straight wins, beat­ing the likes of the Bulls, Cheetahs, Lions and WP and although they will start as firm favour­ites, they will be wise not to under­es­tim­ate their oppon­ents who ran the Bulls very close in Pretoria on Friday. Kick-off at the Absa Stadium is at 7.10pm.

Scorers
Sharks 27 – Tries: Odwa Ndungane, Ryan Kankowski. Conversion: Patrick Lambie. Penalties: Lambie (4). Drop goal: Stefan Terblanche.
WP 16 – Try: Nick Koster. Conversion: Lionel Cronje. Penalties: Willem de Waal (3).

Other res­ults (from left to right)
Friday
Bulls 39 – Griquas 38
Cheetahs 57 – Leopards 0
Lions 33 – Pumas 30

Upcoming fix­tures
Friday, August 27
Lions vs Leopards – Coca-Cola Park Stadium, Johannesburg – 7pm
Pumas vs Bulls – Puma Stadium, Witbank – 5.10pm
Sharks vs Griquas – The Absa Stadium, Durban – 7.10pm
Saturday, August 28
Western Province vs Cheetahs – Newlands Stadium, Cape Town – 7.30pm

Currie Cup log (After seven games)
Pos  Team      Pts
1.    Sharks      30
2.    WP           27
3.    Bulls         22
4.    Griquas     22
5.    Cheetahs   20
6.    Lions         15
7.    Pumas       7
8.    Leopards    4

Klate’s second half strike puts Bucs into semis
Orlando Pirates qual­i­fied for the semi-finals of the luc­rat­ive MTN8 com­pet­i­tion when they defeated Santos 2–1 at Orlando Stadium on Sunday after­noon. New Pirates sign­ing Daine Klate (pic­tured) scored the win­ner in the 62^nd minute to put his side in the last four where they will join Kaizer Chiefs, Moroka Swallows and Ajax Cape Town.

The Buccaneers made a strong start to the game as they used the width of the pitch to attack down the flanks with Klate and Dikgan Mabalane look­ing really dan­ger­ous. The Soweto based oufit, dom­in­at­ing pos­ses­sion and con­trolling the mid­field, almost scored in the sev­enth minute when Isaac Chansa (pic­tured) rose to meet a cross from Klate only to see his header go inches wide of the post.

Encouraged by their near suc­cess Pirates con­tin­ued to press for­ward and were rewar­ded for their pos­it­ive approach when Chansa scored an excel­lent goal in the 19^th minute. The 26-year-old Zambian mid­fielder powered down the left flank before cut­ting inside and fir­ing a rasp­ing shot from just out­side the
18-yard area that found the top right hand corner of the net.

With the Buccaneers con­tinu­ing to dom­in­ate the action it seemed highly unlikely that Santos would be able to score to get back in the match. However, foot­ball is a strange old game and a mis­take by the Pirates defence allowed the People’s Team to net the equal­iser in the 34^th minute.

A care­less pass by the Buccaneers gave away the ball to Santos who quickly launched a counter attack which left Jurie Basie sur­ging towards the Pirates goal with only ‘keeper Moneeb Josephs to beat. Basie made no mis­take by fir­ing the ball past a des­pair­ing Josephs from about 12-yards out to make it 1–1. The goal seemed to lift the spirit’s of the People’s Team and they fin­ished the half the stronger of the two sides.

Santos picked up where they left off at the start of the second half, but des­pite their dom­in­ance they were unable to cre­ate any clear chances on goal. Some poor defend­ing from the People’s Team helped Pirates regain the lead as Klate scored what would prove to be the match winner.

Bafana Bafana inter­na­tional Teko Modise fired in a corner-kick that made its way across the face of goal and to Klate at the back post. The newly signed Pirates player took full advant­age of the goal-scoring oppor­tun­ity to blast the ball home from only a couple of yards out.

With the Buccaneers now 2–1 ahead their play seemed to improve, and they were able to eas­ily retain pos­ses­sion. Denied the ball, Santos could not find the equal­iser enabling Pirates to run out com­fort­able winners.

Other quarter-final res­ults (From left to right)
Friday
Ajax Cape Town 1 – Mamelodi Sundowns 1 (Ajax won 4–3 on pen­al­ties)
Saturday
Moroka Swallows 2 – SuperSport United 2 (Swallows won 4–3 on pen­al­ties)
Kaizer Chiefs 1 – Bloemfontein Celtic 0

The 2010/11 Absa Premiership com­pet­i­tion gets under­way this Friday when Pirates travel to Cape Town to take on new­comers Vasco. Kick-off at the Cape Town Stadium is at 6pm.

Other fix­tures
Friday, August 27
Ajax Cape Town vs Bloemfontein Celtic – Cape Town Stadium – 8.45pm
Saturday, August 28
Wits University vs SuperSport United – Bidvest Stadium – 3pm
Free State Stars vs Santos – Charles Mopeli Stadium – 3pm
Kaizer Chiefs vs Golden Arrows – Rand Stadium – 8.15pm
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Moroka Swallows – HM Pitje Stadium – 8.15pm
Sunday, August 29
AmaZulu vs Maritzburg United – Moses Mabhida Stadium – 3pm
Black Aces vs Platinum Stars – Puma Rugby Stadium – 3pm

Meanwhile, Bafana Bafana player Bongani Khumalo (pic­tured) has reportedly flown to London for a one-week trial at English Premiership side Tottenham Hotspur. The 23-year-old defender emerged as one of the country’s most prom­ising stars dur­ing the Fifa 2010 World Cup and has already been touted as a poten­tial future Bafana captain.

However, Khumalo is likely to face a num­ber of obstacles in his quest to play abroad, most not­ably the strict British Embassy laws which are extremely par­tic­u­lar about the num­ber of caps, of a cer­tain stand­ard, that for­eign play­ers need to have in order to obtain a work permit.Nevertheless the younger defender must be rel­ish­ing the oppor­tun­ity to try out for one of the Premiership’s most pres­ti­gi­ous clubs, and will no doubt give it his all in secur­ing a berth in the Spurs set-up.

Botha is new Proteas T20 cap­tain
Johan Botha (pic­tured right) has been appoin­ted as the new cap­tain of the Proteas’ Standard Bank Pro20 squad. The 28-year-old off-spin bowler and lower order bats­men suc­ceeds Graeme Smith who relin­quished the cap­tain­acy last week.

“Johan was the unan­im­ous choice of the Board and we have every con­fid­ence that he will do an excel­lent job lead­ing up to the next edi­tion of the ICC World Twenty20 in 2012,” remarked Cricket South Africa (CSA) CEO Gerald Majola.

“Johan has an excel­lent record as a leader,” com­men­ted selec­tion con­vener Andrew Hudson. His appoint­ment is part of the pro­cess of refresh­ing our Pro20 squad and also decid­ing whether to fol­low the route of hav­ing dif­fer­ent cap­tains for dif­fer­ent formats of the game,” added Hudson.

Botha said he was look­ing for­ward to the chal­lenge posed by the cap­taincy and was also humbled by the hon­our bestowed on him. “I really enjoyed the cap­taincy when I stood in for Graeme before and I am proud to be offered the job now. I am look­ing for­ward to work­ing with such a spe­cial team,” com­men­ted the new cap­tain. Botha’s appoint­ment is for the Pro20 squad only. The cap­tain to suc­ceed Smith in the one day inter­na­tional (ODI) format will be announced at a later stage. The 29-year-old Smith will retain the ODI cap­taincy until the end of the ICC World Cup next year.

Meanwhile, Free State Eagles bats­men Dean Elgar (pic­tured) scored back to back cen­tur­ies in the two-match, four-day series against Sri Lanka ‘A’ that fin­ished last week, and is now a likely can­did­ate for a Proteas call-up. The 23-year-old left hander made two cen­tur­ies and two half-centuries in four innings while open­ing the bat­ting for the South Africa ‘A’ side against their Sri Lankam counterparts.

Elgar has now scored seven cen­tur­ies in his last year of first-class cricket and it is this kind of con­sist­ent form that is likely to earn him a berth in the Proteas lineup. His 431 runs eas­ily made Elgar the lead­ing runs scorer in the series against the Lankans with no player on either side man­aging to reach 300.

Caster’s back with a bang
World 800m cham­pion Caster Semenya’s comeback con­tin­ued to go accord­ing to plan when she cruised to a com­fort­able vic­tory at the Istaf meet­ing in Berlin on Sunday. Semenya (pic­tured) won eas­ily in 1:59.90 and improved  her season’s best by 2.51 seconds.

The 19-year-old South African was cleared to run against women by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) last month and many pun­dits wondered if she could regain top form after an 11-month lay off.  Semanya’s time was more than four seconds off the 1:55.45 she clocked in win­ning the world title at the same Olympic Stadium a year ago, but it was good enough to prove she is still cap­able of chal­len­ging the best in the world.

Positioning her­self near the back of the pack on the first lap, Semanya powered down the home stretch to fin­ish ahead of Kenyan Cherono Koech who fin­ished second in 2:00.40. "It feels good to be back in Berlin," Semenya said. "I did not think about everything that happened after my gold medal, I just con­cen­trated on my race and my time. My goal was to run under two minutes and I achieved that,” she added.

It was a good day for 800m spe­cial­ists in Berlin, with Kenyan ace David Rudisha clock­ing 1:41.09 to bet­ter the 13-year-old world record of 1:41.11 held by Denmark’s Kenyan born Wilson Kipketer. South African record holder Sunette Viljoen (pic­tured) came fourth in the women’s javelin with a throw of 60.66m.

Meanwhile, Jacques du Plessis earned South Africa’s second gold medal of the inaug­ural Youth Olympics on Saturday. Du Plessis’ throw of 63.94m was good enough to secure vic­tory in the dis­cuss event after swim­mer Chad Le Clos’ earlier gold.

Gauteng North’s Ruan Greyling took second place in the boy’s 400m final clock­ing a per­sonal best of 47.22 secs for his sil­ver. South Africa now has nine medals at the Singapore event – two gold, five sil­ver, and two bronze.

Photo Credits:
Photo – Stefan Terblanche: Source – www.sportydesktops.com
Photo – Daine Klate: Source – www.championsleague.mtnfootball.com
Photo – Isaac Chansa: Source – www.zambianfootball.net
Photo – Bongani Khumalo: Source – www.teamtalk.co.za
Photo – Johan Botha: Source – www.telegraph.co.uk
Photo – Dean Elgar: Source – www.cricinfo.com
Photo – Caster Semenya: Source – www.majimbokenya.com
Photo – Sunette Viljoen: Source – www.daylife.com

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