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Ken Borland



Kolisi: Boks focused on rectifying anomaly of losing record in Australia 0

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Ken

The Springboks have not beaten the Wallabies in Australia since 2013 – a five-game streak – and captain Siya Kolisi said on Saturday that his team are fully focused on rectifying that anomaly when they meet the two-time world champions in a Rugby Championship Test on the Gold Coast on Sunday.

South Africa have beaten Australia in all seven matches back on home turf dating back to 2011, so it is just getting the better of them overseas that is the problem. Kolisi could not put his finger on why that is the case, but he left no doubt as to the current world champions’ desire to claim victory on Sunday.

“You have to give credit to the Wallabies, they don’t lose a lot in Australia, against most teams, especially in Queensland. I don’t know what they do to have that record, but we are 100% focused on what we have to do. Hopefully we will do better than we did in our last game here [the Springboks lost 18-23 in Brisbane in 2018]. This is an important match for us because our record is not good when it comes to winning in Australia.

“The most important thing is for us to stick to our process, we haven’t played in three weeks so we have to make sure we are focused. We take it game-by-game, make sure we pitch up every day and we have to give Australia the respect they deserve. It’s going to be our plan against their plan, bringing that intensity, who tackles the most and who carries the ball the most,” Kolisi said.

As much as the Wallabies will be trying to speed the game up and use their dangerous backline to crack open the Springbok defence, South Africa will also be wanting good, quick ball to make sure their hefty carriers are serviced well.

“Quick ball is important for any team and if we don’t get it then it’s going to be a long day for us,” attack coach Mzwandile Stick said on Saturday. “We want to make sure that we give our big forwards front-foot ball. It’s not only Michael Hooper who slows the ball down, the Wallabies have a lot of players who apply pressure at the breakdown and we know it’s going to be a massive battle, we need to be clinical there so our No.9 is able to give quick service.

“Australia rely on quick ball too, but they are world-class and on a good day they can really punish you. Samu Kerevi is back, they have wings like Marika Koriobete who have lots of pace, and we have to make sure we don’t give Quade Cooper lots of time and space to make decisions. So we have to respect them, make sure we pitch up and play according to our strengths,” Stick said.

Budaza wishes he had not been playing cricket on 27/10/13 … but that day spurs him on to greater heights 0

Posted on October 12, 2020 by Ken

Knights pace bowler Mbulelo Budaza wishes he had not been playing cricket on October 27, 2013, but the awful tragedy that happened that day continues to spur him on to greater heights in his cricket career.

Budaza, then a 20-year-old playing for the University of Fort Hare in Alice, bowled a bouncer to Old Selbornians batsman Darryn Randall. The former Border representative tried to hook the delivery, missed and was struck a fatal blow below the eye, a freak and unimaginable accident because Randall was wearing a helmet.

The 32-year-old collapsed immediately and never regained consciousness. Amidst the horror and utter grief of the tragedy, Randall’s family forgave and offered support to the young Budaza, and said they wanted to see him rise up and go on to play for the Proteas one day.

“My grief for that day will never end, I could not believe it happened, I never stop thinking about it. But it means I badly want to succeed in my cricket career, because of the support I received from his family and mine, and from people like Greg Hayes and Mfuneko Ngam, plus Prince Dabula, the varsity psychologist.

“The Randall family said to Greg that they wanted to see me go on and play for the Proteas, they said it to motivate me and they have been very supportive. That pushes me and I’m very happy with the success I’ve had so far and I’m going to work even harder towards that goal,” Budaza says.

And an audit of Budaza’s career shows that it has certainly been onwards and upwards for the left-arm quick, who has now bowled himself into genuinely being in the conversation for higher honours.

He has been particularly effective in 50-over cricket and from 2015/16 to the 2018/19 season he played 43 games for the Knights and took 54 wickets at an average of 28.12 and an economy rate of 5.45 runs-per-over. And then last season was his real breakthrough campaign as he was the joint leading wicket-taker with Knights team-mate Shaun von Berg in the Momentum One-Day Cup, taking 18 wickets at an average of just 16.27 and an economy rate of only 4.71 as the Central Franchise reached the semi-finals before the season was cancelled due to Covid-19.

“It was a good season after a tough one the year before when everything just seemed to slow down, it was a struggle, I bowled a lot of no-balls and I just didn’t have good rhythm. But I was chuffed to come back strong and I felt very privileged to play so well, thanks to my team-mates’ support. The work I did with our new head coach Allan Donald was the first reason for my comeback and it was an honour for me to work with him. He changed some technical stuff and helped me a lot.

“I’m not really thinking about playing for the Proteas, although that is my dream. My focus is on winning games for the Knights and whatever comes from that will come. If I do well for them again this coming season then hopefully I will get a look-in with the SA A side, but I just have to make sure I am in form and winning games for the Knights.”

The lanky Budaza comes from the Eastern Cape cricket nursery that just keeps rolling out highly talented fast bowlers, but he is not so much an offshoot of township cricket as a product of the rural game.

“I was born in the farming district of Manley Flats and that’s where my cricket started. My first game was when I was watching my cousins play and they were one man short so they called me to help. I grew up playing on the streets and I was always tall. I played for the Willows Club [who Makhaya Ntini used to play for] because there was no cricket at my primary or high school, until in Grade X I got a scholarship to Woodridge College from Grade XI.

“Playing for the Willows Club in Grahamstown, Christo Esau, the Eastern Province provincial coach, and Piet Botha, the head coach –took me to Port Elizabeth for academy trials and I worked with them. Woodridge then said they wanted me and I did not hesitate because I wanted to play cricket,” Budaza explains.

Woodridge College is a private school situated between Port Elizabeth and Jeffreys Bay, so Budaza’s first provincial recognition came with the Eastern Province rural team.

“In 2010, I was chosen for the EP Rural team to go to Kimberley for the Senior Rural Cricket Week. That was a big thing for me, there is talent there and a lot of it is not recognised. So I didn’t take it for granted. I had two options after matric, to go to Fort Hare or the Eastern Province academy. I chose Fort Hare because as a bowler, to have Mfuneko Ngam as a coach would be brilliant. We worked very hard and we got very close, I was very fortunate to have him as a coach.”

Rural cricket is what used to be called Country Districts and it not only highlights the game being played in great spirit but also exposes the considerable talent that exists away from the cities. Leon Coetzee is the president of Rural Cricket South Africa and he says they desperately need more support especially after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I consistently argue that some unions are not spending enough to improve the quality of the many rural clubs in their area, to help them with coaching of coaches and better administration. SA Rural should have more to spend on developing talent, people like Ferisco Adams of Boland and Diego Rosier from Northern Cape came from rural areas and a couple of Black African stars like Mbulelo Budaza came through from Country Districts to get franchise contracts.

“If they didn’t play rural cricket then they would not have been noticed. There’s a massive amount of undiscovered rural talent, but South African cricket is focused more on the semi-pros and franchises. I have approached unions to see how we can improve relations and Covid could have a damning effect on the sustainability of many rural clubs, especially if we can only start playing next year,” Coetzee says.

In terms of style, Budaza is reminiscent of Lonwabo Tsotsobe, the last Black African left-arm quick to play Test cricket for South Africa, and although they do not come from the same community, the former number one ranked bowler in one-day international cricket is also a product of the Eastern Cape.

“They called me ‘Lopsy’ at Woodridge and we had these warm-up T-shirts and my number was also 68. The first time I watched the Proteas play live was an ODI against India in Port Elizabeth in 2011 and Tsotsobe took the first two wickets for South Africa. He was not quick but he got bounce and had a beautiful action. He was my early role-model.” Despite his talents, Budaza only played two first-class, four List A and one T20 game in two seasons with Border. But in a sign of his determination to succeed, he decided his cricket dreams should not suffer one of those long, slow deaths in a relative backwater, even if it was close to home, and he signed for Northern Cape ahead of the 2015/16 season. By that December he was making his Knights debut.

“But I did not get too many semi-pro opportunities with Border, and then Northern Cape signed me, with JP Triegaardt, who is also a very good coach, very active and works you hard,” Budaza says. “The call-up from the Knights was a surprise because I’d only been there a month or two. My first game was against the Cobras and they had all their Proteas back, bowling to guys like Hashim Amla and JP Duminy made me nervous, I had seen them on TV and now I was playing against them. But cricket is cricket so I changed nothing, I just tried to bowl in a good area for as long as possible.”

And the occasion was not too big for him as three of his first five overs were maidens.

Like Tsotsobe, Budaza is a skilful bowler, but he does not believe in bringing a whole backpack of tricks into play, preferring rather to squeeze the batsmen into submission.

“Playing a lot of cricket in Kimberley and Bloemfontein, you’ve got to be clever as a bowler and make sure your skills are up. You have to make sure you are fit and don’t get tired, because then the batsmen will punish you. Whenever I get the ball, I just try to do the right thing for the team. I’m not really chasing wickets, I try to contain and not concede runs whatever happens. But I can be aggressive if I need to be,” Budaza explains.

The member of the South African Emerging Players squad epitomises the Jewish word “Chutzpah” and the words of psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl certainly ring true in Budaza’s case “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Mbulelo Budaza has already overcome significant challenges and is growing rapidly into one of the country’s most exciting bowlers, as well as being, in coach Donald’s words: “nothing but a brilliant human being, it’s amazing how he has got himself up and made something of himself”.

Allan Donald sidebar

Allan Donald had a phenomenal record as a fast bowler and has built up a huge reputation as a bowling coach. In his new position as Knights head coach, he describes Mbulelo Budaza as being a larger-than-life character with a big work ethic.

“He’s been a solid performer for a while and is eager to learn, he tries really hard to execute whatever you’re working on and is a careful listener, before going away to do his drills on his own, he gets on with it. On his day he can swing the ball beautifully, but on some other days the wrist is not quite right and we’re working really hard on rectifying that.

“But he is a lovely character who everyone likes. A funny guy, the room lights up when he’s in it, Mbulelo is a terrific person, when I was consulting we connected very well and he’s a superstar in the making, one of the dependables. What sets him apart is that he stays competitive.

“He’s definitely got a bit more pace than Tsotsobe, but Lopsy used to swing it around corners and really late too. Mbulelo is still working on that side, but sometimes he’s fighting against that naughty wrist. But that can work in his favour because the batsman starts thinking about why it’s not swinging back in … ” Donald said.

“But he can make it move the other way and that’s why he’s so hard to face – he’s unpredictable. I tell him to just keep on faking it on those bad wrist days. But he keeps breaking partnerships on flat pitches, he has golden spells but he also just keeps plugging away. This is going to be a big season for him.”

Lions rugby: Out of the abyss but digging a new hole? 0

Posted on September 24, 2018 by Ken

 

 

One has to admire the Lions Rugby Union for the way they have been able to dig their way out of the abyss of financial ruin that faced them when they were relegated from SuperRugby in 2013. Just five years later and they are unquestionably South Africa’s premier franchise, the one most young players probably want to play for and producing a very popular brand of rugby.

But amidst all this success and SuperRugby trailblazing, there have also been messages coming out of Ellis Park that paint a picture of a franchise that is still anchored in the past in many ways and does not seem able to be the standardbearer of a future game all rugby fans should be hoping becomes truly the sport of all South Africans.

As much as the Lions deserve huge credit, one has to call them out for some of the mixed messages that they have sent out recently; as we have seen after another week of anguish caused by awful social media messages, perceptions are vital when it comes to inclusivity.

With Swys de Bruin jetting off overseas with the Springboks, the Golden Lions needed a new head coach for their Currie Cup campaign. But instead of heading for the safety of port and elevating one of the assistant coaches in Philip Lemmer or Joey Mongalo, or even promoting Bafana Nhleko, who has coached the SuperSport Rugby Challenge team as well as the Lions U19s and U21s and been an assistant with the Junior Springboks, they chose strength and conditioning coach Ivan van Rooyen.

Now Van Rooyen has undoubtedly played a very important part in the Lions’ success over the last few years, but his helicoptering into the head coaching job was inevitably attacked as being anti-transformation in certain quarters.

At this delicate stage in our country’s history, organisations really need to be sensitive about how their actions will be perceived by the majority. I am not saying it was wrong to appoint Van Rooyen, who played for the Lions at junior provincial level, and has gained some insights from Rob Walter, the former Proteas strength and conditioning guru who then became head coach at the Titans cricket team and enjoyed great success.

But the reasons for Van Rooyen’s appointment were never fully explained and even more shade is thrown at the Ellis Park hierarchy when Van Rooyen himself says he won’t be doing any actual coaching but is in more of a managerial role.

Why was this not explained properly on the day of his appointment, thus avoiding plenty of bad publicity?

The prospect of getting involved in rugby in Gauteng for a young Black player or coach is daunting enough without considerable barriers being put in their way, like the recent acquittal of Roodepoort U21 players on charges of racism during their April match against Wanderers.

While acknowledging that Sanele Ngcobo of Wanderers was “an honest and truthful witness” who testified that racial slurs had been made, the Golden Lions Rugby Union disciplinary tribunal ruled that because he could not prove who had specifically spoken the words, a not guilty verdict was appropriate.

For the physical abuse that degenerated into a mass brawl at the end of the game, one Roodepoort player was effectively handed a one-match ban! Talk about a slap on the wrist … and another slap in the face for Black rugby players.

To add insult to injury, when Wanderers were on their way to Roodepoort to play a later fixture, their bus broke down and they missed the game. The GLRU docked them five points, meaning Roodepoort now qualify for the Gold Cup instead of them!

Having reinvented themselves so spectacularly on the field, the Lions rugby union now really need to focus on the message they are sending out to their future market.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180825/282518659358786

 

Madsen makes an early move in Tshwane Open 0

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Ken

Morten Orum Madsen has already triumphed in Johannesburg, winning the SA Open at Glendower in 2013, and the Dane made an early move to the top of the leaderboard in the Tshwane Open on Thursday, posting a seven-under-par 63 in the first round at Pretoria Country Club.

Madsen, who started his round on the 10th hole, will claim all the headlines after he aced the par-three eighth and then eagled the ninth for a spectacular finish to his round, but he was joined on seven-under later in the day by Englishman David Horsey.

While two international golfers are in the lead, South Africans performed strongly on a beautiful day at Pretoria Country Club, with Wallie Coetsee a shot behind in a tie for third with Australian Brett Rumford, while Dean Burmester, Keith Horne and Merrick Bremner all shot 65s and Chris Swanepoel, Oliver Bekker, Trevor Fisher Junior, Justin Walters, Ockie Strydom and Erik van Rooyen are all on four-under.

Horsey started his round on the first hole and, after five successive pars, he motored to three-under at the turn with birdies on the sixth, eighth and ninth holes. He showed that a tactical, safety-first approach is the way to go on this parklands course as he then added four more birdies on the back nine, including shots picked up on the testing 16th and 17th holes, and completed a bogey-free round.

“It’s always nice to play a round with no bogeys, around here one loose tee-shot can easily lead to bogey or worse. I hit a lot of two and three-irons off the tee, just trying to be in the right place.

“Unlike Copperleaf [where the Tshwane Open was previously held], the bombers don’t have an advantage here, it’s a positional course. It’s very tactical, you have to hit the right spots and be sensible about when you attack the flags. I was able to pick my shots and sometimes you hit a three-iron off the tee and take a two-iron into the green!” Horsey said.

Madsen showed that his iron-play is in great nick as he followed up rounds of 64 and 66 to end last weekend’s Africa Open with his 63.

“It was fantastic. I’ve found something in my game that’s working and I’ve been pretty consistent. I’ve put it in the fairway a lot more recently. I’m giving myself a lot more looks at birdie and that makes everything easier. It takes the stress off the putter a bit and it’s easier to relax,” Madsen said.

Holes-in-one normally come at the most unexpected times, but Madsen said he had an inkling that one was around the corner for him.

“For the last couple of weeks I’ve been hitting some shots that were really close and I said to my caddie that a hole-in-one was on the cards pretty soon. Luckily for me it came today. I hit a fantastic shot, I couldn’t hit it better, and it spun back into the hole. That was only my second hole-in-one and it’s really special to have one in competition on the European Tour.

“I had 123 metres with a 54-degree wedge. The wind was a little bit off the right. I hit a really solid shot and struck it so well that it flew past the pin and then spun right back in,” Madsen said.

The 26-year-old was not finished yet, though, as he then proceeded to eagle the 490-metre par-five ninth.

“When you stand on the next tee after a hole-in-one you’re pretty pumped and confident. I succeeded in gathering my thoughts and hit a really nice drive and then a great second shot. I played a three-iron to 12 feet and then sank it, which was a fantastic way to finish. It was the kind of thing you dream about, but don’t expect,” Madsen said.

Coetsee was not able to finish the deal in the Joburg Open, leading at the start of the final round but being overtaken by Andy Sullivan, and he finished in a tie for 45th at the Africa Open, but the 42-year-old was impressive on Thursday in collecting five birdies and an eagle, and dropping just one shot, on his way to a 64.

Coetsee said he is taking a lot of irons off the tees and, even when he does hit driver, he’s not giving it 100% effort.

Rumford joined the Jeffrey’s Bay resident on six-under with a round that featured no dropped shots and three birdies on each nine.

While Raphael Jacquelin’s finish was nothing like Madsen’s, the Frenchman nevertheless surged up the leaderboard into a tie for fifth on five-under as he birdied holes seven to nine, having also started his round on the 10th.

Local hero George Coetzee’s round was nothing if not eventful as he started with two birdies, bogeyed the fourth and then birdied seven and nine to go out in 32. But he then bogeyed the 10th and 14th holes, before completing a 67 with birdies at the 15th and 16th holes.

http://citizen.co.za/343100/tshwane-open-first-round/

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    1 John 2:5 – “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him.”

    James 2:14 – “What good is it if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?”.

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    “How genuine can your love for God truly be if you are aware of a serious need and do nothing to alleviate it?”- Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm



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