Weekly Sports Wrap, South African sports news – 28 September

Lions keep Currie Cup hopes alive in six-try thriller
The Lions con­tin­ued their recent run of good form in this year’s Absa Currie Cup to run out nar­row 22–20 win­ners over log lead­ers the Sharks at Coca-Cola Park Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday even­ing. Lions cap­tain Franco van der Merwe (pic­tured) scored a 79^th minute try to bring the sides level and fly­half Elton Jantjies made no mis­take with the con­ver­sion to give the Lions their sev­enth win of the sea­son from 12 starts.

Some will con­sider the Lions for­tu­nate to have emerged vic­tori­ous given that tele­vi­sion replays appeared to show Van der Merwe short of the line, but to be fair the Sharks also benefited from an official’s error when assist­ant ref­eree Christi du Preez missed Lwazi Mvovo’s foot on the touch line for his second try ...

In Du Preez’s defence, his vis­ion was obscured by a diving Jannie Boshoff, and the try was awar­ded. Still, both incid­ents may over­shadow the res­ult, but they shouldn’t detract from an excit­ing game of rugby which demon­strated the best of the Currie Cup and had the res­ult in the bal­ance throughout.

The vis­it­ors got off to a dream start when they drew in the Lions’ defence on the first attack, adding an extra player on the left hand flank to put wing Mvovo away for his first score. The home side then lost hooker Martin Bezuidenhout in the after­math after he was spot­ted throw­ing a punch leav­ing ref­eree Jason Japhta no choice but to pro­duce a yel­low card.

However, the Lions went in front with an impress­ive long-range try by centre Jaco Taute after a mis­take on attack by the Sharks. Andries Strauss failed to hold onto a pass from eighth­man Ryan Kankowski and Doppies le Roux took the ball up 30 metres before send­ing the pacy Taute up the middle to score under the posts.

Jantjies slot­ted the con­ver­sion to go with an earlier pen­alty and the home side were now 10–5 to the good with just a few minutes till the inter­val. However, the elu­sive Mvovo put his team level in the 38^th minute with his second, albeit con­tro­ver­sial, five pointer and the teams went into the inter­val with it all to play for in the remain­ing 40 minutes.

The Lions lost try scorer Taute early in the second half as he walked off with his arm in a sling, but they exten­ded their lead shortly there­after when Jantjies put Waylon Murray (pic­tured left) into enough space for the big centre to crash over the line. The Sharks hit back minutes later when right wing Odwa Ndungane dot­ted down in the far right hand corner for a con­ver­ted try and when fly­half Patrick Lambie slot­ted a pen­alty shortly there­after it looked as though the vis­it­ors were head­ing for their 10^th win of the season.

However, as fate would have it, Kankowski tramped on a Lion’s play­ers chest  with just five minutes to go prompt­ing Japhta to imme­di­ately pro­duce a yel­low card. The nor­mally unflap­pable No 8’s moment of mad­ness cost his team his ser­vices for the remainder of the match and with the vis­it­ors now reduced to 14 men, the Lions threw everything they had into attack. They were soon rewar­ded when Van der Merwe crashed over to keep their Currie Cup hopes alive.

Both teams gave it their all in an intensely phys­ical battle and the match was a good example of just how little there is to choose between the top six teams in this year’s com­pet­i­tion. The win kept the Lions’ hopes of mak­ing it through to the semi-finals alive, but they will have to win their remain­ing games against the Cheetahs on Saturday and the Pumas the fol­low­ing Friday to do so.

“Today was make or break for us and I’m very glad we came through. There’s a lot of char­ac­ter in this team and I think we are going to go places,” said a clearly elated Van der Merwe dur­ing the post match inter­views. Indeed, the Lions are without a doubt one of the form teams in the com­pet­i­tion at the moment, and it would be nice to see them qual­ify for the semi-finals after a dread­ful Super 14 cam­paign where they were unable to register a single win.

Scorers
Lions 22 – Tries: Jaco Taute, Waylon Murray and Franco van der Merwe. Conversions: Elton Jantjies (2). Penalty: Jantjies.
Sharks 20 – Tries: Lwazi Mvovo (2) and Odwa Ndungane. Conversions: Patrick Lambie. Penalty: Lambie.

Other res­ults (from left to right)
Friday
Cheetahs 59 – Pumas 24 – Vodacom Park, Bloemfontein
Western Province 48 – Griquas 32 – Newlands Stadium, Cape Town
Saturday
Bulls 39 – Leopards 26 – Profert Olen Park, Potchefstroom

Currie Cup log (After 12 games)
Pos  Team          Pts
1.    Sharks          47
2.    WP               43
3.    Bulls             38
4.    Cheetahs      37
5.     Lions           35
6.     Griquas       31
7.     Pumas         17
8.     Leopards       5

Mashego puts Pirates into final
Orlando Pirates notched up their first win over arch-rivals Kaizer Chiefs in a domestic cup com­pet­i­tion in over 12 years when they dis­patched the Amakhosi 1–0 at the FNB Stadium in an MTN8 semi-final second leg game to take the tie 2–1 on aggreg­ate after the teams had played to a 1–1 draw in their first leg encounter two weeks ago.

In a match where both teams had chances to win, it was Katlego Mashego (pic­tured), on as a second half sub­sti­tute for Pirates, who ended up scor­ing the win­ner in the 81^st minute to send the Buccaneers through to the final. Chiefs’ best oppor­tun­ity to score came in the 57^th minute when Mthokozisi Yende struck the Pirates cross bar.

The Buccaneers troubled Chiefs early on and had a num­ber of chances before Happy Jele fired a shot at goal which whistled past ‘keeper Itumeleng Khune in the sev­enth minute. Shortly there­after Ezenwa Otorogu shot wide with another effort at goal.

Chiefs’ first attempt on goal was a long range effort from Reneilwe Letsholonyane in the 14^th minute, but instead of going for goal, the Chiefs mid­fielder should have passed the ball to the unmarked Jimmy Tau who had space to his right. The power­ful Otorogu was able to cre­ate two oppor­tun­ites for his team in the 20^th minute when he first man­aged to find Isaac Chansa, who fired the ball straight at Khune from 18 yards.

A few seconds later Otorogu con­trolled a long ball from Pirates ‘keeper Moeneeb Josephs before lay­ing it off from the right to Daine Klate whose effort on goal failed to trouble Khune. Some good all round work from Chiefs saw Mandla Masango find Siphiwe Tshabalala in the 24^th minute with a ball along the ground from the left which the Bafana Bafana inter­na­tional fired goal-ward. A sur­prised Josephs only man­aged to block the ball, but was bailed out by Klate, who cleared the rebound.

The final action of the open­ing half saw Khune punch clear Dikgang Mabalane’s free kick from the left and with the score 0–0 at the inter­val both sides had it all to play for going into the final 45 minutes. Chiefs went on the offens­ive early in the second half and in the 51^st minute Khune’s long kick from the back went over the Pirates defend­ers. Knowledge Musona then ran onto the ball, but his lob over Josephs failed to find the back of the net.

Six minutes later a shot from Masango was deflec­ted and the ball fell to Yende who unleashed a power­ful vol­ley which beat Josephs only to crash against the cross­bar. Musona and Sthembiso Ngcobo then blew goal-scoring oppor­tun­it­ies within the space of a few minutes before Pirates struck a decis­ive blow.

A cross by Mark Mayambela went under Dominic Isaacs and hit Mashego before beat­ing Khune at his far post, put­ting the Buccaneers in front with just nine minutes to go. Pirates had the oppor­tun­ity to seal the match when they were awar­ded a pen­alty after Nahayo had held back Tlou Segolela, but Rooi Mahamutsa fired his spot kick over the bar in the 87^th minute.

However, the miss did not prove costly as Pirates held on for the vic­tory and booked their place in Saturday’s final where they will meet Soweto rivals Moroka Swallows at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. The Birds qual­i­fied for the final with a 3–2 vic­tory over Ajax Cape Town on Saturday giv­ing them a 3–2 advant­age on aggreg­ate after the teams played to a goal­less draw two weeks ago.

Other res­ults (Absa Premiership)
Wednesday
Golden Arrows 2 – Free State Stars 0 – Chatsworth Stadium
Santos 0 – Mamelodi Sundowns 1 – Athlone Stadium
Bloem Celtic 2 – Maritzburg Utd 0 – Seisa Ramabodu Stadium
Platinum Stars 2 – AmaZulu 2 – Royal Bafokeng Stadium
Vasco Da Gama 2 – Wits 0 – Bellville Stadium

Spin duo lead Chennai to Champions League T20 title
Some bril­liant bowl­ing from Ravichandran Ashwin (2/16 off four overs) and Sri Lankan legend Muttiah Muralitharan (3/16 off four overs) led the Chennai Super Kings to a com­fort­able eight wicket vic­tory over the Chevrolet Warriors in the Champions League T20 final at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Sunday. Off-spinners Ashwin and Muralitharan snared a com­bined 5/32 in eight overs, stalling the Warriors innings and restrict­ing the Eastern Cape out­fit to 128/7 in their 20 overs.

Chennai open­ers Michael Hussey and Murali Vijay then gave their team the per­fect plat­form for vic­tory with a first wicket part­ner­ship of 103 in 14.5 overs. Vijay was the driv­ing force in the part­ner­ship, slam­ming six fours and two sixes in his 58 off 53 balls, before he was caught by Justin Kreusch off the bowl­ing of left-arm spin­ner Nicky Boje. The less flam­boy­ant Hussey fin­ished with an unbeaten 51 off 46 deliveries.

Realising that the Warriors’ only chance of defend­ing such a small total was by tak­ing wick­ets, cap­tain Davey Jacobs (pic­tured) used former Proteas pace­man Makhaya Ntini with the new ball, but Vijay struck him for three fours in his two overs up front and Chennai had the start they wanted. Ntini man­aged to dis­miss Suresh Raina for two when he returned in the 16^th over, but is was only a tem­por­ary reprieve as Mahendra Singh Dhoni took Chennai to vic­tory with two fours and a six in his unbeaten 17.

Ashwin and Muralitharan had earlier put a strangle­hold on the Warriors bat­ting as the South African Pro20 cham­pi­ons could only muster a measly 128 runs. The Warriors had made a good start after win­ning the toss and bat­ting, racing to 44/1 after five overs. However, Ashwin swung the momentum Chennai’s way as he dis­missed the dan­ger­ous Jacobs, trap­ping him leg-before after the 27-year-old missed a reverse-pull.

Jacobs had once again looked in ter­rific form, as he raced to 34 off 21 balls, with eight fours, but his depar­ture allowed Chennai to demon­strate the depth and bal­ance of their attack. Colin Ingram (16 off 23 balls) and Justin Kreusch (17 off 17) struggled to score quickly and when Ingram fell in the 11^th over, sky­ing a hook off Albie Morkel to deep back­ward square-leg, the Warriors were tot­ter­ing on 73/3.

Muralitharan came on and star­ted to wreck havoc as he bowled Boucher (5 off 11) and then had Kreusch caught by Raina to leave the Warriors in dis­ar­ray on 82/5. Craig Thyssen (25 off 18) then gave the Warriors’ innings a semb­lance of respect­ab­il­ity when he smashed three fours and a six off 18 balls, but it was never going to be enough against the power­ful Chennai bat­ting line up.

Results lead­ing up to the final (SA teams in bold)
Last Tuesday
South Australian Redbacks beat Guyana by 15 runs
Royal Challengers Bangalore beat the Bizhub Highveld Lions by six wick­ets
Wednesday
Wayamba Elevens beat the Central Stags by 74 runs
Chennai Super Kings beat the Chevrolet Warriors by 10 runs
Friday (First semi-final)
Chennai Super Kings beat the Royal Challengers Bangalore by 52 runs (Duckworth/Lewis method)
Saturday (Second semi-final)
Chevrolet Warriors beat the South Australian Redbacks by 30 runs

Sifama and Mpambanyeni tru­imph in SA title fights
Xola Sifama suc­cess­fully retained his South African fly­weight title when he stopped chal­lenger Wele Yokose in an action packed fight at the Mdantsane Indoor Sports Centre on Sunday night. Sifama unleashed a flurry of blows on his cour­ageous foe in the 11^th round, knock­ing the chal­lenger down twice before the ref­eree hal­ted proceedings.

The more exper­i­enced Sifama was always in con­trol against the younger Yokose, land­ing a num­ber of power­ful blows early on and back­ing up his oppon­ent. The chal­lenger would have been bet­ter advised to box and move rather than to stand toe to toe with his stronger oppon­ent. However, the Mdantsane south­paw chose to slug it out with Sifama and even­tu­ally paid the price for his bravado as he wil­ted under the pres­sure in the 11^th round.

Yokose star­ted on the back foot against the cham­pion but gained momentum, land­ing a num­ber of solid blows on the cham­pion. However, Sifama remained com­posed under pres­sure and held on to his oppon­ent whenever the going got tough. The cham­pion also counter punched very effect­ively and in the 10^th round there were signs that an inside the dis­tance win was just around the corner.

Those signs did not prove to be mis­lead­ing as Yokose hit the deck a few minutes into the next round and although he man­aged to beat the count, it was ulti­mately in vain as he promptly made another trip to the can­vas after a fur­ther onslaught from the now rabid cham­pion. The vic­tory was Sifama’s eighth as a pro­fes­sional against two losses and a draw with five of those wins com­ing via the short route. Yokose suffered his first defeat in the paid ranks as he fell to 3–1 (2 KO’s).

In another South African title fight held over the week­end, Khaphathe Mpambanyeni won the vacant mid­dle­weight belt at Strandville near Durban on Saturday when he stopped Mthokozisi Malinga in the fifth round of a one-sided con­test. Mpambanyeni, who ori­gin­ally hails from the Limpopo Province but is now based in Gauteng and trained by Nic Durandt, came out fir­ing at the bell and soon had his oppon­ent in trouble.

The older Malinga made two trips to the can­vas in the first round and another in the second cour­tesy of some big right hands and although he man­aged to sur­vive rounds three and four, the ref­eree decided he had seen enough and stepped in to save Malinga from fur­ther pun­ish­ment mid­way through the next round. Mpambanyeni improved his record to 6–1 (6 KO’s) while Malinga fell to 8–4-1 (1 KO).

The title became vacant when Peter Mashamaite was unable to defend it after com­mit­ting him­self to a more luc­rat­ive fight for the vacant World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Africa mid­dle­weight title. The tour­na­ment was presen­ted by Ludonga Promotions.

Meanwhile, it was announced on Thursday that unbeaten heavy­weight pro­spect Flo ‘The Demolition Man’ Simba will do battle with Hugo Abad from Equador at Emperor’s Palace in Kempton Park on November 6. The 20-year-old Simba, who was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but has lived most of his life in South Africa, has won seven con­sec­ut­ive fights since turn­ing pro­fes­sional in October last year.

However, he has faced mod­er­ate oppos­i­tion at best and it will be inter­est­ing to see how he fairs against the more exper­i­enced Abad who has won 20 fights against seven losses and a single draw. The 35-year Abad has been punch­ing for pay since July 1993 and his exper­i­ence may prove to a stum­bling block for Simba, who has a tend­ency to leave him­self open to counter punches when on attack.

Other fights on the Golden Gloves Promotions bill see International Boxing Organisation (IBO) super-middleweight cham­pion Isaac ‘Golden Boy’ Chilemba defend­ing his title against Thomas ‘Tommy Gun’ Oosthuizen (pic­tured right), light­weight pro­spect Jason ‘Badman’ Bedeman tak­ing on Korean Ji-Hoon Kim and former International Boxing Federation (IBF) junior light­weight cham­pion Malcolm ‘Stone’ Klassen squar­ing off against Vin Vin Rufino of the Phillipines.

Maxwell gets a per­sonal best in Berlin
Durban-based ath­lete Tanith Maxwell (pic­tured) did her coun­try proud when she fin­ished eighth in the 37^th run­ning of the Berlin Marathon on Sunday morn­ing. The 34-year-old Maxwell notched up a per­sonal best of 2hrs, 32 min and 33 secs behind win­ner Aberu Kedebe of Ethiopia.

Kedebe, who broke the tape in 2:23:58, was a minute ahead of coun­try­wo­man and pre-race favour­ite Bezunesh Bekele, with Japanese run­ner Tomo Morimo third in 2:26:10. In a race where only the top five women dipped under the 2:30 bar­rier, Maxwell spent most of the event in the top 10.

The Boxer club ath­lete went through the first five kilo­metres in 18:07 and then increased the pace through to 15km, which she com­pleted in 53:19 on route to a 75:24 split at halfway. Some steady run­ning took her to 2:24:23 at the 40km mark, where she slowed to 3 min, 44 secs per kilo­metre through to the fin­ish. Maxwell’s time was two-minutes bet­ter than her pre­vi­ous best set at the London Marathon in April.

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Photo Credits:
Photo – Franco van der Merwe: Source – www.abc.net.au
Photo – Waylon Murray: Source – www.luiperdrugby.co.za
Photo – Katlego Mashego: Source – Gallo Images
Photo – Davey Jacobs: Source – www.chevroletwarriors.co.za
Photo – Thomas Oosthuizen: Source – www.boxrec.com
Photo – Tanith Maxwell: Source – Guy Mortimer