Boks ‘huff and puff’ their way to defeat in Brisbane

Boks ‘huff and puff’ their way to defeat in Brisbane
The Springboks suffered a dis­ap­point­ing 21–6 defeat to the Wallabies at the Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday and although they remain at the top of the Tri-Nations log and nine points clear of nearest rivals New Zealand, the Boks still need at least a bonus point from their last match against the All Blacks in Hamilton on Saturday, to clinch the championship.

Old habits die hard, and the Boks’ inab­il­ity to keep play­ing the full 80 minutes cost them dearly as the Wallabies pulled away and cruised to a com­fort­able vic­tory. The Boks haven’t won at the Suncorp Stadium since 1971 and the trend con­tin­ued on Saturday as the Aussies out­played their Southern Hemisphere rivals to record their first vic­tory in this year’s competition.

The match was played at a fren­etic pace with the Boks ini­tially tying to match the Wallabies blow for blow. However, the Australians took everything the Boks dished out and gave more in return as they outscored their more fan­cied rivals by two tries to nil for a well deserved victory.

Indeed, the writ­ing was on the wall for the Boks as they changed ends 9–6 in arrears after ref­eree Wayne Barnes judged a pass to be for­ward when the Boks were set to score a try just before the break. With a pos­sible seven points out the win­dow and star wing Bryan Habana out of the game as a res­ult of “a cut mouth and a tight ham­string”, the Boks seemed to lose momentum and never recovered. Second half tries by centre Adam Ashley Cooper and full­back James O’ Connor exten­ded the Wallabies’ lead and put the res­ult bey­ond doubt as the Boks simply never had an answer to a determ­ined dis­play by the Australians, which must be a con­cern to coach Peter de Villiers (pictured).

The Boks now go into Saturday’s game against the All Blacks in Hamilton need­ing at least a bonus point to secure a Tri-Nations win, which had earlier seemed a fore­gone con­clu­sion. However, after their com­pre­hens­ive defeat to the Wallabies, John Smit’s men won’t be tak­ing any chances and will be doing everything in their power to ensure they take home the trophy. It should be a crack­ing game.

Scorers:
Australia:
Tries — Adam Ashley Cooper, James O’ Connor.
Conversions — Matt Giteau.
Penalty goals — Giteau (2).
Drop goal — Giteau.

South Africa:
Penalty goal — Morné Steyn.
Drop goal — Steyn.

Province out­last Bulls, but drop to second on log
Western Province got the bet­ter of the Blue Bulls at Newlands in Cape Town on Saturday even­ing with Luke Watson’s men pre­vail­ing 25–19 over the Pretoria vis­it­ors in a tight and absorb­ing Currie Cup Premier Division encounter. Trailing 16–12 at the break, Province moun­ted an effect­ive fight back to hand the Bulls their second con­sec­ut­ive defeat of the sea­son, which must be a cause of con­cern for the men in blue who seem to be los­ing momentum at a crit­ical point in the com­pet­i­tion. It was a cour­ageous per­form­ance by the Capetonians who man­aged to claw their way back from a 13–3 defi­cit to clinch victory.

Province owe their vic­tory to their tight five who dom­in­ated the scrums and their only try was a dir­ect res­ult of that dom­in­ance when they smashed the Bulls pack, allow­ing No 8 Watson (pic­tured) to crash over in the 60^th minute. Livewire full­back Joe Pietersen con­trib­uted 20 points via his deadly boot, slot­ting six pen­al­ties and a con­ver­sion, to help sink the vis­it­ors. The Province No 15 has really impressed all and sun­dry this sea­son with his excel­lent all round play and he is quickly becom­ing a valu­able asset to the Cape out­fit in their quest for Currie Cup honours.

For the Bulls, how­ever, things don’t look nearly as good, and they will have to tighten up their play con­sid­er­ably if they hope to mount a ser­i­ous chal­lenge for the title. Their only con­sol­a­tion was scor­ing a bonus point for fin­ish­ing within seven points, cour­tesy of a late pen­alty by fly­half Burton Francis who con­trib­uted 14 points with the boot.

Despite their win, which lif­ted them to 32 points on the stand­ings, Province actu­ally dropped to second place behind the Sharks on points dif­fer­ence. Nevertheless, it was a great win for Province who will be brim­ming with con­fid­ence when they face the Cheetahs in Bloemfontein on Saturday. The Bulls’ next out­ing is against the Sharks in Pretoria on Saturday, but although they will have home ground advant­age, the Bulls are likely to be unsure of them­selves after two suc­cess­ive defeats.

Scorers:
Province 25 — Try: Luke Watson. Conversion: Joe Pietersen. Penalties: Pietersen (6).
Bulls 19 — Try: Jaco Pretorius. Conversion: Burton Francis. Penalties: Francis (4).

Cheetahs, Leopards, Sharks record good wins
The Cheetahs con­tin­ued their recent resur­gence when they defeated the Lions 20–16 (half­time 13–6) in Bloemfontein on Saturday to record their fifth win in a row in this year’s Currie Cup Premier Division. It has been a remark­able reversal of for­tune for the Free Staters, who made a dis­astrous start to the sea­son; los­ing their open­ing four games and look­ing noth­ing like the suc­cess­ful team of pre­vi­ous years. However, their vic­tory over the Lions has made it pos­sible for the Cheetahs to con­tend for a semi-final berth with just five rounds remain­ing in the competition.

The match itself never lived up to any great heights, but the Free Staters led from start to fin­ish after fly­half Jacques-Louis Potgieter (pic­tured) had opened the scor­ing in the sixth minute cour­tesy of a long-range pen­alty. The Cheetahs did have to with­stand a tor­rid final quarter where the Lions pres­sured them at every turn, but they man­aged to hold out for the win, which could be cru­cial in determ­in­ing which teams secure semi-final berths in five weeks’ time.

Scorers:
Cheetahs 20 — Tries: WP Nel, Frans Viljoen. Conversions: Jacques-Louis Potgieter (2). Penalties: Potgieter (2).
Lions 16 — Try: Derick Minnie. Conversion: Herkie Kruger. Penalties: Kruger (3).

In other ninth round matches, which took place on Friday, Griquas squeaked home 34–33 against the vastly improved Leopards in a thriller in Potchefstroom, while the Sharks crushed the hap­less Boland Cavaliers 48–3 in Wellington. Griquas’ next out­ing is against Boland in Wellington on Friday after­noon while the Leopards battle the Lions on the same even­ing in Johannesburg.

Scorers
Leopards 33 — Tries: Shuaib Samaai, Danie Dames. Conversion: Cecil Dumond. Penalties: Dumond (7).
Griquas 34 — Tries: Trompie Nontshinga, Ryno Barnes, Barry Geel, Bjorn Basson. Conversions: Naas Olivier (4). Penalties: Riaan Viljoen, Olivier
Boland 3 — Penalty: Elgar Watts.
Sharks 48 — Tries: Jacques Botes (3), Keegan Daniel, Craig Burden, Charl McLeod, Lwazi Mvovo, Monty Dumond. Conversions: Juan Hernandez (3), Riaan Swanepoel.

Irish eyes are smil­ing as Bafana lose again
Despite dom­in­at­ing the match for large peri­ods, Bafana Bafana some­how con­trived to lose a friendly inter­na­tional against Ireland in Limerick last night. Bafana’s 1–0 defeat was their second in four days after they suc­cumbed 2–0 to Germany on Saturday even­ing and their sixth straight loss over­all. Granted, these defeats have come against top qual­ity oppos­i­tion, but they are still losses which can’t be good for mor­ale at a time when Bafana are pre­par­ing for next year’s vital World Cup.

The South Africans enjoyed plenty of pos­ses­sion and ter­rit­orial advant­age, but were unable to con­vert that into the goals they needed for a win. Indeed, hav­ing no less than 11 shots on goal and fail­ing to con­vert a single one of them is inex­cus­able, and Bafana will have to do some ser­i­ous soul search­ing to try and find out why they just can’t seem to hit the back of the net when it counts. Ireland right wing Liam Lawrence scored the only goal of the match when he curled a free kick past Bafana goal­keeper Rowen Fernandez (pic­tured) in the 37^th minute.

Bafana did threaten to score on numer­ous occa­sions, but in the end they sprayed most of their shots wide with Ireland goal­keeper Kevin Westwood only been tested on one occa­sion. Bafana Coach Joel Santana defen­ded his side’s per­form­ance say­ing that the chief aim of these friend­lies is to build exper­i­ence with the res­ults not being that import­ant. Indeed, Santana does have a point, but at the end of the day every­one loves a win­ning team rather than a los­ing one, and it’s doubt­ful if the nation will want to get behind a team that doesn’t seem to know how to win. Hopefully, Bafana’s for­tunes will change soon.

The Absa Premier Soccer League (PSL) con­tin­ues as usual with a host of matches being played this week­end. The pick of the bunch is likely to be the clash between log lead­ers Orlando Pirates and third placed Golden Arrows at the Chatsworth Stadium in Durban on Saturday afternoon.

Proteas cruise to vic­tory against Highveld Lions
With their first ICC Champions’ Trophy match just weeks away the Proteas are pre­par­ing well for the tour­na­ment if their com­fort­able five wicket win over the Highveld Lions at Senwes Park in Potchefstroom on Friday is any­thing to go by. Chasing a chal­len­ging 252 for vic­tory off their allot­ted 40 overs, the Proteas required more than a run a ball from the out­set and they duly obliged with Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis (pic­tured) mak­ing valu­able con­tri­bu­tions at the top of the order.

Amla scored 79 runs off 73 deliv­er­ies while Kallis weighed in with 114 of just 92 balls to set up the Proteas’ vic­tory. Kallis’ knock included 16 spark­ling fours and he was only pre­ven­ted from bat­ting through to the end of the innings by a photo fin­ish run out. Amla’s innings was equally impress­ive, with the KwaZulu-Natalian strok­ing eight fours in a second wicket part­ner­ship with Kallis that took the Proteas to within 100 runs of vic­tory after the early depar­ture of opener Herschelle Gibbs. The Proteas begin their ICC Champions’ Trophy cam­paign against Sri Lanka on September 22 at SuperSport Park in Centurion.

SCORECARD
Lions innings
J Symes c De Villiers b Morkel — .82
A Petersen c Ntini b Morkel — 47
N McKenzie c De Villiers b Botha — .3
V Van Jaarsveld c Gibbs b Peterson — 19
D Vilas c De Villiers b Morkel — 74
J Vandiar not out — 5
R Frylinck b Morkel — 4
W Deacon not out — .7
Extras 10 (3b, 1lb, 1nb, 5w)
Total 251/6
Did not bat: W Coetsee, T Tsolekile, F de Wet
Falls: 1/69 2/79 3/112 4/222 5/236 6/243
Bowling: Steyn 8–1-59–0 (2w), Ntini 7–0-46–0, Morkel 6–0-54–4 (1nb), Kallis 3–0-8–0, Van der Merwe
4–0-24–0, Botha 4–0-20–1, Duminy 5–0-17–0 (1w), Peterson 3–0-19–1 (2w)

Proteas innings
H Amla c Govender b Coetsee — .79
H Gibbs b Deacon — .1
J Kallis run out (De Wet/Coetsee) — 114
AB de Villiers lbw b De Wet — .14
JP Duminy not out — .27
M Boucher run out (De Wet) — .5
A Morkel not out — .5
Extras 7 (2lb, 1nb, 4w)
Total 252/5 (47.3 overs)
Did not bat: J Botha, R van der Merwe, R Peterson, D Steyn
Bowling: De Wet 8–0-47–1 (1w), Deacon 6–0-50–1 (1nb), Frylinck 7–0-55–0 (3w), Govender 4–0-23–0, Coetsee 8–0-46–1, Symes 4–0-28–0, Vandiar 0.3–0-1–0
Result: Proteas won by 5 wick­ets (with 2.5 overs to spare)

Mbulaeni gets career best
Mbulaeni Mulaudzi (pic­tured) just seems to be get­ting bet­ter and bet­ter with age. The 28-year-old South African track star recor­ded a per­sonal 800m best of 1 min 42.86 secs at the Rieti International Grand Prix meet­ing in Italy on Sunday night to bet­ter his pre­vi­ous mark set in 2003 by three-hundredths of a second.

The world cham­pion fin­ished third in an extremely fast race behind Kenyans Davis Rudisha and Alfred Yego who clocked 1:42.01 and 1:42.67 respect­ively. The win­ning trio’s times were the fast­est this year with Rudisha now hav­ing the dis­tinc­tion of being the fourth fast­est 800m run­ner ever with only Wilson Kipketer (1:41.11), Sebastien Coe (1:41.73) and Joaquim Cruz (1:41.77) hav­ing run faster. Mulaudzi is now almost cer­tain of a place in the IAAF/World Athletics Final meet­ing in Greece next week­end. SA record holder Hezekial Sepeng is the only South African to boast a quicker time than Mulaudzi. Sepeng clocked 1:42.69 in Brussels in 1999.

Meanwhile, in upcom­ing road run­ning action, the Pietermaritzburg leg of the 2009 Spar Women’s 10km Challenge takes place on Sunday, September 13 with KwaZulu-Natal run­ner Tanith Maxwell the favour­ite to take hon­ours in an event likely to attract a large field.

Ryan tips over the apple­cart to clinch maiden win
Twenty-eight-year-old Ryan Tipping (pic­tured) won his first pro­fes­sional tour­na­ment when he defeated Chris Swanepoel on the second hole of a sudden-death play­off at the 54-hole SAA Pro-Am Invitational on Saturday. The slender Tipping, a Johannesburg res­id­ent who turned pro­fes­sional five years ago, carded a final round 69 for an over­all score of 208 to tie with Swanepoel for first place, for­cing the play­off, which was decided on their third trip of the day up the 18^th. Jbe’ Kruger, who won the Zambian Open last week­end, fin­ished on 209 with rounds of 71, 73 and 65 to share third place with Brandon Pieters and Tyrone Mordt.

Selected scores (RSA unless spe­cified)
208 — Ryan Tipping 69 70 69; Chris Swanepoel 71 73 64. (Tipping won on the second hole of a sud­den death play­off).
209 — Jbe' Kruger 71 73 65
Brandon Pieters 71 69 69
Tyrone Mordt 73 64 72

Meanwhile, Retief Goosen shot a final round 71 to fin­ish in joint eighth pos­i­tion at the Bank Championship in Norton, Massachusetts, USA on Monday. The South African fin­ished on 271 to tie with Americans Jim Furyk and Sean O’ Hair with their coun­try­men Tiger Woods one shot adrift after the golf­ing ace carded a scorch­ing final round 63.
Steve Stricker, also of the U.S., who has now replaced Woods atop the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup play­off stand­ings, won the tour­na­ment. Stricker bird­ied the last two holes for a final round 67 which put him a shot clear of coun­try­men Jason Dufner and Scott Verplank who carded final rounds of 65 and 67 respect­ively. It was Stricker’s third vic­tory of the cur­rent PGA Tour sea­son.

Selected scores (U.S. unless spe­cified)
267 — Steve Stricker 63 72 65 67
268 — Jason Dufner 66 69 68 65
Scott Verplank 65 68 68 67
269 — Angel Cabrera (Argentina) 65 69 70 65
Dustin Johnson 68 65 70 66
Padraig Harrington (Ireland) 67 67 67 68
270 — Geoff Ogilvy (Australia) 66 68 70 66
271 — Jim Furyk 63 67 73 68
Sean O'Hair 66 64 70 71
Retief Goosen (South Africa) 65 67 68 71

Wesley edges into U.S. Open quar­ters
Durban born Wesley Moodie (pic­tured) and his Belgium part­ner, Dick Norman, con­tin­ued their win­ning form in grand slam doubles this year by defeat­ing Czech Martin Damm and Swede Robert Robert Lindstedt 6–7 (4–7) 7–6 (7–2) 7–6 (7–5) to reach the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open on Sunday.

The tower­ing duo (Moodie stands 1.96m and Norman a very impos­ing 2.03m) man­aged to carve out a win against oppon­ents who provided stub­born res­ist­ance, hold­ing out for almost three hours dur­ing the three tiebreaker sets. In the end, though, the exper­i­ence of Moodie and Norman paid off as they kept up the pres­sure to force the win in a very tight encounter.

The sev­enth seeded pair had pre­vi­ously reached the final of the French Open and the Wimbledon semi-finals, with the former South African num­ber one singles player now ranked ninth in the world in doubles. It will be very inter­est­ing to see if Moodie and Norman can go on to win the tour­na­ment. Watch this space next week to see if they succeeded.

SA gla­di­at­ors plan to steal the show in Kempton Park
Capable South African boxer Zolani ‘Untouchable’ Marali defends his International Boxing Organisation (IBO) super feather­weight title against Korea’s Ji Hoon Kim (18–5, 15 KO’s) at the ‘Night of the Gladiators’ tour­na­ment at Emperor’s Palace in Kempton Park on Saturday night. Marali will be mak­ing the first defence of the title he won by defeat­ing Mexican Gamaliel Diaz on points at the same venue earlier this year.

The 32-year-old south­paw from Mdatsane in the Eastern Cape has an excel­lent record of 20–2 with 13 of those 20 vic­tor­ies com­ing via knock­out, while the 22-year-old Kim has stopped nine of his last ten oppon­ents. Marali will clearly have to avoid drop­ping his hands against the hard-hitting Korean in what prom­ises to be a thrill­ing contest.

In other match ups on the bill, excit­ing Grant Fourie (10–0-1, 7 KO’s) faces fel­low unbeaten South African Jason Bedeman (8–0-2, 6 KO’s) for the IBO con­tin­ental light­weight belt, while lanky Thomas Oosthuizen (pic­tured in white trunks) (7–0, 6 KO’s) will trade blows with power punch­ing Brazilian Cleber Alves (5–1, 4 KO’s) in a bout for the IBO youth super mid­dle­weight title. In another inter­est­ing con­test, Kenya’s Douglas Otieno (20–3, 10 KO’s) chal­lenges Malawian Isaac Chilembe (13–1, 8 KO’s) for the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) Africa light-heavyweight title. Former world light wel­ter­weight and wel­ter­weight cham­pion Ricky Hatton will attend the tour­na­ment as a TV commentator.

In another fight tak­ing place this week­end, fero­cious punch­ing Patrick Malinga (25–6, 22 KO’s) defends his South African light­weight title against inex­per­i­enced Vusumzi Tyatyeka (5–0, 4 KO’s) in Lenasia on Friday night.

Minnaar takes second in Canberra
Pietermaritzburg born Greg Minnaar (pic­tured) rode an aggress­ive race to fin­ish second in the men’s down­hill at the world moun­tain bike cham­pi­on­ships in Canberra, Australia, on Sunday. The 28-year-old Minnaar was beaten into second place by 35-year-old Britain Steve Peat, who blitzed the 2.1km Stromlo Forest Park course in two min, 30.33 secs with Australian Michael Hannah tak­ing third pos­i­tion. Peat had fin­ished second in the down­hill at the world cham­pi­on­ships four times and had been try­ing for a long time to win an event, scor­ing a string of second places before clinch­ing his first vic­tory on Sunday – def­in­itely an advert­ise­ment for per­sever­ance. Emmeline Ragot of France won the women’s event in 2:50.05.

Photo Credits:
Boks ‘huff and puff’ their way to defeat in Brisbane — Photo – Peter de Villiers: Source – www.abc.net.au
Province out­last Bulls, but drop to second on log — Photo – Luke Watson: Source – www.zoopy.com
Cheetahs, Leopards, Sharks record good wins — Photo – Jacques-Louis Potgieter: Source – www.zimbio.com
Irish eyes are smil­ing as Bafana lose again — Photo – Rowen Fernandez: Source – www.bild.de
Proteas cruise to vic­tory– Photo – Jacques Kallis — Source – www.samsungcricketlovers.com.pk
Mbulaeni gets career best — Photo – Mbulaeni Mulaudzi: Source – www.news.bbc.co.uk
Ryan tips over the Applecart — Photo – Ryan Tipping: Source – sunshinetour.info/profiles/TIP001.htm
Wesley edges into U.S. Open quar­ters — Photo – Wesley Moodie: Source – www.zimbio.com
SA fight­ers plan to steal the show in Kempton Park — Photo – Thomas Oosthuizen: Source – www.thetimes.co.za
Story title – Minnaar takes second in Canberra– Photo – Greg Minnaar: Source – www.britishcycling.org.uk