South African Sports News – 9 December

Bafana get tough draw
Bafana Bafana (pic­tured) will play Mexico in their open­ing Group A match of the 2010 World Cup finals, which kick-off on June 11 at the new multi-billion rand Soccer City sta­dium. Also in Bafana’s group are 1934 World Cup win­ners Uruguay and 1998 vic­tors France.

Fifa sec­ret­ary gen­eral Jerome Valcke and South African born Hollywood movie star, Charlize Theron, con­duc­ted Friday night’s draw at the International Convention Centre. Two thou­sand guests and 800 local and inter­na­tional journ­al­ists atten­ded the high pro­file event watched by an estim­ated live tele­vi­sion audi­ence of around 200 mil­lion viewers ...

The presenters were assisted on stage by a star-studded line-up of sports celebrit­ies, which included England soc­cer star David Beckham, Ethiopian track legend Haile Gebrselassie, Protea pace­men Makhaya Ntini, Springbok rugby cap­tain John Smit and Bafana Bafana player Matthew Booth.

South African pres­id­ent Jacob Zuma and Fifa boss Sepp Blatter wel­comed the audi­ence at the begin­ning of the 90-minute live show. Guests included the likes of Issa Hayatou, chair­man of the World Cup organ­ising com­mit­tee, Nobel peace prizewin­ners FW de Klerk and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, not to men­tion former foot­ball icons Franz Beckenbauer, Michel Platini, Eusebio and Roger Milla.

The major­ity of the 32 coaches of the coun­tries who qual­i­fied for the 2010 showpiece were at the draw. Ninety-one-year-old former South African pres­id­ent and Nobel peace prizewin­ner Nelson Mandela, affec­tion­ately known as Madiba, addressed the audi­ence by video mes­sage. “This is the first time that the World Cup will be played in South Africa. We feel priv­ileged and humbled. We must strive for excel­lence and reap the rewards of the World Cup. Ke Nako – It is time,” said Mandela.

England take series win after Kingsmead wash out
Rain had the final say as the fifth MTN one-day inter­na­tional (ODI) between South Africa and England was washed out without a ball being bowled at Kingsmead in Durban on Friday. The afternoon’s pro­ceed­ings (or rather lack thereof) meant that the vis­it­ors claim the five match series 2–1 after the first match was also aban­doned due to rain. England is only the second team to win a bilat­eral ODI series in South Africa with Australia hav­ing done the trick twice, in the 1996/7 and 2001/2 seasons.

It was a very dis­ap­point­ing end to the series for the Proteas who were hop­ing to win the Kingsmead encounter to even mat­ters after a shock­ingly poor per­form­ance last Sunday at St George’s in Port Elizabeth. Graeme Smith’s men will instead have to wait for the open­ing game of the four match test series for a chance at redemp­tion. The series begins at SuperSport Park in Centurion on December 16 and the Proteas will be thrilled to have stal­wart Jacques Kallis (pic­tured) back on board their flail­ing ship.

The 34-year-old South African crick­et­ing legend, undoubtedly the best all rounder this coun­try has ever pro­duced, is simply a must have for the Proteas and his absence for a part of the ODI series was a big factor in their defeat.

SA fal­ter in Dubai
Neil Powell has been ruled out of the Emirates Airline SA Sevens tour­na­ment, which will be held at Outeniqua Park in George on Friday and Saturday. The vet­eran player injured his shoulder dur­ing the Dubai Sevens Plate Final against Australia over the weekend.

The youth­ful Australians stunned the IRB Sevens World Series cham­pi­ons 7–0 to cap­ture the Plate, a day after they had beaten the same oppon­ents 29–0 in a pool match. Marius Schoeman, who missed the Dubai Sevens tour­na­ment due to a calf injury, has replaced Powell, a former Springbok Sevens captain.

South Africa have returned to George along with 15 other inter­na­tional teams for the annual Sevens showpiece in the beau­ti­ful Garden Route city. Paul Treu (pic­tured), the South African coach, said the team’s two defeats last Saturday against Fiji (in the Cup quarter-final) and Australia was a big dis­ap­point­ment. However, Treu added that there were pos­it­ives to extract from the fail­ures in Dubai.

“The two losses were a massive eye-opener for the guys and they now real­ise that they will have to play so much bet­ter as the defend­ing SA tour­na­ment and World Series cham­pi­ons,” explained Treu. “We were also able to give inter­na­tional debuts to young­sters like Cecil Afrika, Deon Helberg and JW Jonker, and that was a big pos­it­ive for me. The young­sters now have a taste of what it takes to com­pete at the highest level and that will serve them very well in George this week,” he added.

New Zealand turned back the chal­lenge of Samoa in the Dubai Cup final, 24–12, and take an early lead in the Series stand­ings with 24 points. South Africa picked up eight points after los­ing to Australia in the Plate Final and the team is well aware that they will have to improve sig­ni­fic­antly to have any hope of defend­ing their championship.

Meanwhile, a hat trick of tries by Springbok wing Bryan Habana helped the Barbarians to a 25–18 win over New Zealand at Twickenham on Saturday with the invit­a­tional team defeat­ing the All Blacks for only the second time in 10 out­ings. The Barbarians’ only other vic­tory over the All Blacks was the 1973 suc­cess in Cardiff, high­lighted by the most fam­ous try in rugby, scored by Gareth Edwards.

A clever break by Australia wing Drew Mitchell set up Habana’s first score. His second came via a 70m inter­cep­tion before he bagged his third try of the match with a clin­ical fin­ish. The Springbok No 11 even­tu­ally left the field to a stand­ing ova­tion after 70 minutes of inspired play.

Wallaby fly­half Matt Giteau con­ver­ted two of Habana’s tries and slot­ted a pen­alty, with another Springbok, fly­half Morne Steyn, seal­ing the win with a second pen­alty late in the game. The All Blacks replied with tries from Ben Smith and Anthony Boric, but were unable to hold off their determ­ined opponents.

Santos too good for Swallows
Heavy rain played havoc with the Absa Premier Soccer League (PSL) this past week with no less than four games hav­ing to be aban­doned due to water­logged pitches. However, there were good wins for second placed Santos, Orlando Pirates (sixth place), Ajax Cape Town (third place) and Kaizer Chiefs (fifth place) and things are get­ting really inter­est­ing now as the top teams jostle for suprem­acy in a very com­pet­it­ive competition.

Santos ran out com­fort­able 2–0 win­ners over Moroka Swallows at the Coetzenburg Stadium on Saturday night. Tyren Arendse (pic­tured right) opened the scor­ing in the 33^rd minute when his 30-yard effort took a massive deflec­tion off Kagiso Denge, giv­ing Swallows ‘keeper Greg Etafia no chance. The Cape side then made it 2–0 just three minutes into the second half when Arendse’s clever pass gave Graham King a clear run in on goal and he made no mis­take as his styl­ish chip found the back of the net.

Swallows enjoyed a fair amount of pos­ses­sion in the clos­ing stages of the game, but the Cape side’s defence held firm to deny the Dube Birds any chance of sta­ging a recov­ery. Santos’ next encounter is against strug­gling Jomo Cosmos who are last on the log, and they will be con­fid­ent of com­ing away with another win against a side who are lack­ing dir­ec­tion and con­fid­ence. The match will be played at the Rand Stadium this evening.

Results (from left to right)
Last Wednesday
Golden Arrows 2 Black Aces 1
Bloem Celtic 3 Bidvest Wits 0
Maritzburg United 1 Platinum Stars 3
Jomo Cosmos 1 Orlando Pirates 0
Mamelodi Sundowns vs Santos (washed out)
Kaizer Chiefs vs AmaZulu (washed out)
Moroka Swallows vs Free State Stars (washed out)

Over the week­end
Bidvest Wits 0 Ajax Cape Town 2
Free State Stars 2 Jomo Cosmos 2
Platinum Stars 0 Black Aces 1
Orlando Pirates 1 Golden Arrows 0
Santos 2 Moroka Swallows 0
Maritzburg United 1 Kaizer Chiefs 3
AmaZulu 2 Bloem Celtic 1
SuperSport United vs Mamelodi Sundowns (washed out)

Yesterday
Mamelodi Sundowns 1 Bidvest Wits 0

Stars set to shine against Amakhosi
As per usual there are a whole host of PSL matches tak­ing place all around the coun­try over the next few days. The pick of today’s matches is prob­ably going to be the encounter between fifth placed Kaizer Chiefs and Platinum Stars (eighth place) who have had a topsy tur­vey sea­son so far.

Stars (pic­tured) are one of those sides who can beat any team in the league when on form, but they can also be ter­rible as the dis­played by going down 1–0 to lowly Black Aces over the week­end. Chiefs have exper­i­enced a resur­gence in form over the last couple of weeks and their con­vin­cing 3–1 win against Maritzburg United over the week­end will not be good news for Stars.

In week­end action, Santos will be aim­ing to keep on the win­ning path when they face the always-dangerous Golden Arrows, who are ninth in the stand­ings, in what is likely to be a very inter­est­ing encounter at the Coetzenburg Stadium on Saturday even­ing. Santos have been very con­sist­ent this sea­son, but they will have to have their wits about them against Arrows, who have pierced the armour of many a team this season.

Fixtures
Today
Golden Arrows vs Free State Stars Chatsworth Stadium 3.30pm
Black Aces vs Orlando Pirates Puma Rugby Stadium 7.30pm
Ajax Cape Town vs Amazulu Newlands Stadium 7.30pm
Jomo Cosmos vs Santos Rand Stadium 7.30pm
Kaizer Chiefs vs Platinum Stars Orlando Stadium 7.30pm
Bloem Celtic vs Maritzburg Utd Seisa Ramabodu Stadium 7.30pm
Moroka Swallows vs SuperSport Utd Dobsonville Stadium 7.30pm

Saturday
Bidvest Wits vs Moroka Swallows Bidvest Stadium 3.30pm
Free State Stars vs Black Aces Goble Park 3.30pm
Platinum Stars vs Orlando Pirates Royal Bafokeng Stadium 3.30pm
SuperSport United vs Jomo Cosmos Super Stadium 6.00pm
Santos vs Golden Arrows Coetzenburg Stadium 8.00pm
Kaizer Chiefs vs Bloem Celtic Orlando Stadium 8.15pm

Sunday
AmaZulu vs Mamelodi Sundowns Chatsworth Stadium 3.30pm
Maritzburg Utd vs Ajax Cape Town Woodburn Stadium 3.30pm

Allenby clinches vic­tory in Sun City
Robert Allenby nar­rowly defeated defend­ing cham­pion Henrik Stenson of Sweden to win the $1,2-million (R9 mil­lion) 2009 Nedbank Golf Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City on Sunday. Allenby clinched vic­tory on the third hole of a sudden-death play-off on a final day of fluc­tu­at­ing for­tunes, which saw the Australian real in play­ing part­ner Retief Goosen’s two-shot overnight lead to join Stenson at the top of the leader board on 11-under-par.

The lanky Melbourne nat­ive then tri­umphed in a tense play-off to become the first man from ‘down under’ to cap­ture the title. South African Tim Clark (pic­tured) and England’s Ross Fisher had their chances to be part of the play-off, but just could not turn up the heat when it mattered.

In the end Allenby was a deserving win­ner as he undoubtedly was the most con­sist­ent golfer over the four days with only six dropped shots and a large num­ber of putts that skimmed the hole.

Scoreboard (South African unless stated)
277 – Robert Allenby (Aus) 68, 70, 68, 71
– Henrik Stenson (Swe) 70, 68, 70, 69
278 – Tim Clark 69, 72, 68, 69
– Ross Fischer (Eng) 73, 69, 66, 70
279 – Retief Goosen 69, 68, 67, 75
281 – Angel Cabrera (Spa) 71, 67, 68,75
282 – Nick Watney (U.S.) 73, 73, 63, 73
283 – Luke Donald (Eng) 72, 71, 68, 72
284 – Robert Karlsson (Swe) 70, 72, 71, 71
286 – Hunter Mahan (U.S.) 70, 71, 72, 73
292 – Richard Sterne 72, 75, 70, 75

With pro­ceed­ings at the Gary Player Country Club now over, all eyes will be on Richard Sterne as the local player pre­pares to defend the Alfred Dunhill Championship, which starts on Thursday at the Leopard Creek Country Club in Malelane. Sterne will be look­ing to make amends for a poor per­form­ance in the Nedbank Golf Challenge where he fin­ished last with a dis­ap­point­ing over­all score of 292.

‘Time bomb’ set to explode again
Despite his recent points defeat at the hands of International Boxing Organisation (IBO) wel­ter­weight cham­pion Lovemore Ndou, Phillip ‘The Time Bomb’ Ndou (32–4; 31 KO’s) will launch another comeback when he tackles Ali Phiri (5–1; 2 KO’s) of Zimbabwe in a sched­uled eight round junior-welterweight bout at the Wembley Arena in Johannesburg on Friday night.

The hard-hitting Ndou (pic­tured) was regarded as one of South Africa’s most excit­ing fight­ers before a cyst on the brain forced him into retire­ment in 2004 at the age of 27. However, in 2008, two neuro-surgeons cleared him to fight again and after just one warm up fight, he took on name­sake Lovemore for the vacant IBO wel­ter­weight title in July.

Despite show­ing glimpses of his past form ‘The Time Bomb’ was soundly out­poin­ted by his 38-year-old oppon­ent, and it seemed time for him to retire again. However, many pun­dits believe that rather than giv­ing him­self time to shake off his ring rust, Phillip instead rushed into a major fight without the right kind of build up or pre­par­a­tion. They feel that a couple of warm up fights against the likes of the light hit­ting Phiri is just what the doc­tor ordered – and they just may be right.

In the main bout of the Branco Sports Production bill, Isaac Hlatshwayo (29–1-1; 10 KO’s) will defend his International Boxing Federation (IBF) wel­ter­weight title against Jan Zaveck of Slovenia (27–1; 15 KO’s). Hlatshwayo won the title in August by out­box­ing the dan­ger­ous Delvin Rodriquez of the Dominican Republic in a bout held in Uncasville, Connecticut, USA. Like Hlatswayo, Zaveck is a slick boxer and earnt his title shot with an excel­lent knock­out vic­tory over rugged Argentine Jorge Daniel Mirande in June.

Whatever hap­pens on the night, Hlatswayo can expect a hard out­ing against Zaveck, whose only defeat was to the highly regarded Rafal Jackiewicz of Poland in a bout for the European wel­ter­weight title in November last year. The Pole was awar­ded a highly dis­puted split decision vic­tory over the Slovack in his home coun­try and you can bet your bot­tom dol­lar that Zaveck will be aim­ing to ensure that his encounter with Hlatswayo doesn’t go the distance.

In another upcom­ing bout, which was sup­posed to have taken place last Friday night, Nkqubela Gwazela (17–7; 14 KO’s) will take on Nicky Otieno (18–3; 7 KO’s) of Kenya in an inter­na­tional ban­tam­weight con­test in East London. The former South African fly­weight cham­pion is a dan­ger­ous puncher who has the power to knock out any­one he faces, but he can be out­boxed, which is some­thing the wily Otieno will be hop­ing to achieve come Friday night.

Cobras and Lions cruise to vic­tory
The Nashua Cape Cobras and the bizhub Highveld Lions proved to be to strong for their respect­ive oppon­ents as both teams recor­ded com­fort­able vic­tor­ies in their respect­ive SuperSport Series matches over the weekend.

The Cobras simply had too much fire­power in their bowl­ing depart­ment for the Diamond Eagles to handle as the Cape fran­chise recor­ded a con­vin­cing 106 run vic­tory over the Free State out­fit at Newlands in Cape Town on Sunday. The Eagles were rolled over for just 131 runs in their second innings with seamer Vernon Philander (4/32 in 13 overs) and spin­ner Robin Peterson (5/60 off 15.2 overs) the des­troy­ers in chief.

The Cobras had earlier notched up 226 all out in their second innings, which was just five runs shy of their first innings total. The Eagles had recor­ded 220 all out in their first innings and both teams found them­selves in favour­able pos­i­tions until Philander (pic­tured) and Peterson’s superb efforts sealed the match for the home side.

The Lions made a meal of the Nashua Titans at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom as they crushed their Gauteng rivals by an innings and 216 runs. The Lions piled on the agony for the Titans when they notched up a mam­moth 550/7 declared in their first innings with Vaughn van Jaarsveld (135 runs off 174 balls), Zander de Bruyn (144 off 235), Stephen Cook (77 off 164), Grant Mokoena (56 off 85), Neil McKenzie (42 off 88) and Thami Tsolekile (49 off 130) all get­ting amongst the runs.

The Lions bowl­ers tore through the Titans bat­ting line up in their first innings with the Pretoria fran­chise only man­aging a paltry 134 all out. Cliffie Deacon (4/43 off 15 overs), Friedel de Wet (3/39 off 13 overs) and Pumelela Matshikwe (3/29 off 11 overs) all com­bined well to send the Titans packing.

Faced with a huge first innings defi­cit of 416 runs, the Titans wil­ted under the pres­sure and could only muster an ordin­ary 200 all out in their second innings. Farhaan Behardien (50 off 64 balls) was the only Titans bats­man who was able to offer any real res­ist­ance in another very ordin­ary bat­ting dis­play by the Pretoria out­fit. Deacon (3/73 off 19.1 overs) and DeWet (3/37 off 19 overs) were again among the wick­ets as the Titans failed to apply themselves.

The weekend’s res­ults left the Cobras on top of the log with 59 points, slightly ahead of the Titans (57.42) and the Lions (57.14). The Chevrolet Warriors (53.14), Eagles (46.62) and Nashua Dolphins (46.42) are in fourth, fifth and sixth place respect­ively. This week’s fix­tures pit the Dolphins against the Warriors at Kingsmead in Durban while the Lions take on the Eagles at the Wanderers in Johannesburg.

Scores in brief
Cape Cobras vs Diamond Eagles
Cobras: 231 & 226
Eagles: 220 & 131
Result: Cobras won by 106 runs
bizhub Highveld Lions vs Nashua Titans
Lions: 550/7 dec
Titans: 134 & 200
Result: Lions won by an innings and 216 runs

SA Swimmers excel in Rio
The South African team earned six sil­ver and two bronze medals at the weeklong International Paralympic Committee (IPC) World Short Course Swimming Championships in Rio de Janeiro, which fin­ished on Sunday.

South Africa’s medal win­ners were Shireen Sapiro (sil­ver in the 100m back­stroke and 100m but­ter­fly, S10 cat­egory), Shannon Ferguson (50m and 100m free­style and 50m back­stroke, S3 cat­egory) and Tadhg Slattery (pic­tured) who cap­tured sil­ver in the 100m breast­stroke and bronze medals in the 100m and 200m indi­vidual med­ley races in the SB5 category.

“The res­ults achieved by the South African team at these cham­pi­on­ships was the per­fect way to fin­ish off a highly suc­cess­ful 2009 aquat­ics cam­paign for South Africa,” said Swimming SA chief exec­ut­ive Shaun Adriaanse. “On behalf of Swimming SA, I would like to extend my best wishes to the swim­mers who did us so proud in Brazil,” he added.

Photo Credits:
Bafana get tough draw — Photo – Bafana Bafana: Source – nelsonmandelabay.gov.za
England take series win after Kingsmead wash out — Photo – Jacques Kallis: Source – samsungcricketlovers.com
SA fal­ter in Dubai — Photo – Paul Treu: Source – www.sabcnews.com
Santos too good for Swallows — Photo – Tyren Arendse: Source – www.de.oleole.com
Stars set to shine against Amakhosi — Photo – Platinum Stars: Source – www.premiercup-bayhill.co.za
Allenby clinches vic­tory in Sun City — Photo – Tim Clark: Source – www.thesibylspeaks.wordpress.com
‘Time bomb’ set to explode again — Photo – Phillip Ndou: Source – www.goldengloves.co.za
Cobras and Lions cruise to vic­tory — Photo – Vernon Philander: Source – www.flickr.com
SA swim­mers excel in Rio — Photo – Tadhg Slattery: Source – www.news.bbc.co.uk

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