The Open

With most of the Yanks stubbornly refusing to refer to it by its proper name, "The Open", as well as the lack of a certain Tiger Woods at the event there is certain to be a distinct downturn in interest from West of the Pond, something I'm sure Phil Mickelson will be desperately trying to rectify.

The interest from SA couldn't be greater with 13 qualifiers we should stand a great chance of getting in amongst the leaders. Ernie, despite his Scottish Open form looked about as comfortable as Bob Mugabe at 10 Downing Street shooting 80 means that he'll almost certainly miss the weekends play along with Darren Fichardt.Retief Goosen held the flag high in terrible conditions with a one over par 71, the Goose desperately seeking the form that made him a major winner in 2001 & 2004 at the US Open. He's currently tied for 7th and if he can keep it together in the difficult conditions could be a huge threat. Memories of '04 at the impossible Shinnecock Hills swirling around in my head, reminding us just how good he can be in difficult conditions. Early days yet but ...

The best of the rest, Trevor Immelman tied for 39th at +4 (wouldn't it be fantastic to see him win 2 majors in a year?) and the duo of Thoams Aiken and 48 year old David Frost tied for 56th at 5 over. The full scorecard available here.

The big story of the day was the return of the Great White Shark, Greg Norman the second-oldest player in the field shot a 70 to be tied for 4th after round 1 what a story it would be if the newly married, former world number 1 could pull off a stunning victory!

Robert Allenby, Rocco Mediate and Graeme McDowell lead on one under from Norman, fellow Ozzie Adam Scott and Bart Bryant who are all level par. My money is on Adam Scott, but what a story a Goosen or Norman victory would make.

THE Pieter De Villiers Video

A wonderful show of emotion from the springbok coach after the win against the All Blacks, it is quite comical to see the little guy hugging guys like Big Vic and Schalk (poor Vict almost bowled over by the coachs joy), this together with his reaction after the Januarie try shows that the man clearly has passion for the Boks and as any career counseller will tell you if you're doing something you're passionate about it's a great start.

Alot has been written about Div before and after the win, but one thing is for sure we are in for a change of style from the days of Jake White. White was known for been fairly dogmatic and his own man, whereas from early on Div has definately adopted a more concensus based approach to his team management and playing style.

All I can say is well done Div and long may it continue.

Kissing your sister never felt so good ...

Morné du Plessis once memorably described a draw in a Currie Cup final as being like ‘kissing your sister’. Well if that applies to the SA cricket team they must be having some very strange feelings in their collective boxes. Having been completely and utterly outplayed for 3 straight days they produced a magnificent performance to bat out 2 days and earn a draw at Lords.

Graeme Smith, Neil McKenzie and Hasim Amla where the architects in chief of the draw, but we shouldn't forget Aswell Prince and AB De Villiers contributions in the first innings while all around them capitulated they stood tall and left South Africa with an outside chance of a draw without them the game would have been lost after day 3.

Worry signs for SA where the lack of penetration of the SA attack Ntini, Steyn and Kallis picking up 1 wicket between them for a cost of over 300 runs, for a bowling attack compared to the legendary West Indians of the 1980's that return simply isn't good enough.

The good news is that the Proteas will head to Headingly with a extra spring in their step and the England bowlers will no doubt be out on their feet after bowling for almost 3 straight days, the wear and tear on Sidebottom and Anderson could be telling on an England side who will no doubt be lifted by the return of Flintoff. So Friday will see the start of what promises to be an intriguing five days in Leeds.

Christmas comes in Januarie

Despite the fact that South Africa's most popular news website can't spell his name correctly, Ricky Januarie is the name on every South African sports fans lips. An outstanding individual try completed a historic win for the Boks in Dunedin and an (almost) dream start to the coaching career of Pieter De Villiers. Roundly criticized last week and mentioned as a racial appointment and puppet by Craig Dowd, Div hit back in the best possible fashion by becoming the first ever Bok coach to win at the House of Pain and give SA our first victory in NZ since "The Slappies Try" of 1998.

Although I hope to that this blog never becomes a racial stamping ground Div did get a fair amount of stick in the media (a lot of it just and what a Bok coach should expect if he loses), some of which was based on the fact that he was a quota appointment, hopefully we can see that one now put to bed!

I point on the rise of Januarie this season. He has been outstanding and I believe this gives further credence to the policy of consistency in selection. Many will point to Jake White as the mastermind behind this however consistency in selection has been the cornerstone of most of the words most successful sporting teams, think Man United, the Ozzie crickets, The Chicago Bulls in the '90's. Januarie had a poor 2007 yet he was maintained in the Springbok structures and has repaid that faith in buckets - selectors take note, think of Ruan Pienaar, Frans Steyn et al. Form is temporary, class is permanent.

The Boks will rightly go into this weekends class with, what appears to be a distinctly undercooked Wallabie side, as odds on favourites. The only concern is that the Springbok mindset seems to work best as an underdog, there's nothing more dangerous than an injured Springbok. De Villiers must now prove that he can convert the back to the wall Springbok attitude to one that can handle the expectation of winning! He's made a good start ...

Rugby - Kiwi Style

Despite their dubious proximity to convicts, their love for all things lamb and what appears to be a newly found knack of crying about how much the Boks cry (and I thought rugby was a mans game), I rather like the Kiwis.

I sit opposite one at work and he's a nice enough guy, since I've taken down the poster of Smitty holding up ol' Bill he's stopped mentioning our scrum collapse last Saturday. Anyway this is the way the Kiwi's role during their rugby shows, imagine Naas's reaction on Boots&All ...

from our friends at BBC.

"New Zealand rugby fans watching a regular sports programme found themselves viewing hardcore pornography instead on Sunday afternoon."

but wait it gets better

"Four minutes of pornography interrupted sports coverage on the Prime Television channel, after what a spokesman described as a distribution mix up. The pornographic footage was meant for an adult pay-per-view channel. Instead, it found its way onto a regular free-to-air programme called Grassroots Rugby. Rival television channels reported that some viewers were angry about the broadcast, which may have been seen by children. "

Grassroots Rugby = porn. Brilliant!

More or less ...

A weekly feature on this site will be a round out of incidents that I feel we either need more or less of in sports (not specifically South Africa). They'll be the moments that put a lump in your throat or get you out of your chair with rage. I must admit I'm a tad old school when it comes to these things so I'm sure there will be plenty of debate about what I deem a "bad", but that's half the fun of sport isn't it - my horrendous tackle on Smitty, is the NZ commentators bit of harmless argy bargy. Let the debate begin...

More: Let me just say right off the bat that I'm a huge Roger Federer fan, I think if there where more sports stars out there like RF the world would be a better place (maybe a tad over the top there) but the quality of tennis that Federer and Nadal produced on Sunday was simply unbelievable. At 2 sets to love up 5-2 in the tie break, Nadal must have thought game, set and match but Federer pulled through to produce a match that will long live in the memory by fighting back to take not only the 3rd but the 4th set before finally surrendering in the 9-7 in the longest ever mens final, at times I sat with my jaw literally wide open at these two. (see the 4th set tie break below.) Long may the Fed vs Rafa rivalry continue.

The humility shown by both of them in the post match interview just further enhanced the reputation of both of these men. In an age where sports stars are hitting the headlines more and more for late night drinking, sex scandals, diving and generally doing whatever they can to make sports a profession you wouldn't want your kids to take up, Roger and Rafa are two players I would be proud to be related too. They went at each other tooth and nail for 4 hours and 48 minutes and yet at the end remained true to the spirit of sport.

Nadal: "I must congratulate Roger, he's still the No1, he's still the best, and he's won five times here."
Federer: "I tried everything, but Rafa's a deserving champion, he's the worst opponent on the best court. It's a pity I couldn't win it, but I'll be back next year."

Just have a gander at this:



Less: This happened a few weeks ago and I considered not posting it, but the sheer magnitude of what unfolded made me upset enough to dig through the archives and relive the moment. All I can say is Paul Collingwood you should be ashamed of yourself and every England cricket player standing on that field should hold their head in shame, it was a disgusting moment that leaves a sour taste in every ones mouth in my opinion the Kiwi dressing room had every reason to be as angry as they where. The Pommie press rightly lambasted Collingwood. Here are a few choice extracts:

"Oh, the folly of Capt Colly!" was the Daily Mail's headline. The paper said the incident was the worst involving an England captain since Mike Gatting argued with Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana 21 years ago."Paul Collingwood's reputation may be sullied forever," it added.The Guardian compared the incident with the furore involving former captain Michael Atherton over alleged ball-tampering 14 years ago.Atherton himself wrote in the Times that England lost "a good deal of self-respect" over the incident but praised Collingwood's "outstanding" honesty and contrition in apologising."Cricket became a contact sport here yesterday [Wednesday] as England's win-at-all-costs attitude saw them beaten off the last ball by New Zealand in a game soured by the run-out of Grant Elliott at a crucial stage," wrote former England bowler Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph.

Justice was eventually done when the Kiwis won off a last ball overthrow - karma as they say is a b*tch.

For those who haven't seen it here is the video of the run out and the aftermath.

De Villiers first test ...

As big a build up as I have seen in SA in long while leading into the Boks first real test as World Champions (still has a nice ring to it). The Boks where disappointing at best and real letdown. A 19-8 loss to the All Balcks should never to acceptable to an SA rugby public who expect much more.

Lets start with the positives the return of Joe Van Niekerk was (at least for me) a pleasant surprise and the more I see of Conrad Jantjes at test level the more I'm convinced he's the real deal, although you've gotta hope that PDV opts for the experience of Monty at fullback and pushes Jantjes out to the wing.

Jean De Villiers also continues to impress this season although he will hopefully partner Frans Steyn in the midfield come next Saturday (unlikely with PDV's liking for Adi Jacobs).

The bad, was the fact that we never got to pressurize the All Balck line-out, only getting our first feed after more than 30 minutes. Disappointingly that we never managed to exploit the absence of Richie McCaw either as the All Blacks are at least 10-15% worse off without him.

Butch James was also disappointing and had one of his worse games in a Bok jersey for a while but Butch is a quality player and my money is on him bouncing back stronger than ever next week.

The downright ugly was the Bok scrum and the worrying thing is that De Villiers doesn't have much else in his squad to call on - Mujati didn't fair much better than CJ and Guthro, it would be unfair to expect The Beast at 22 to come in and rectify the scrum, with apologies to 'ol Will a prop a prop my kongdom for a prop! (or the selection of BJ Botha). Equally as ugly was the lack of leadership once John Smit left the field, we heard in the build-up to the match how the core of the team was full of leadership, but once Smitty left the field none of Victor Matfield, Jaun Smith, Jean De Villiers, Butch James, CJ van der Linde etc. stuck up their hand and with Smit out for the rest of the tour things aren't looking all that pretty.

Here's hoping the Boks can turn things around next week. Courtesy of the kind folk at RugbyDump here are some of the highlights from the match.