Ken Borland

To lose four games in a row and then fail to win the fifth when all the hard work had been done is soul-destroying for any team and Unlimited Titans captain Darren Sammy is feeling the pain, according to coach Rob Walter.

The Titans looked set to end their RamSlam T20 Challenge losing streak in the triple-header at Kingsmead at the weekend when they needed just five runs from five balls to beat the Cape Cobras, Qaasim Adams’ scintillating 68 off 36 balls and David Wiese’s 24 not out off seven balls taking them to the brink of a testing target of 170.

But Wiese, having just launched the first ball of Kieron Pollard’s final over for six, then holed out to long-on off the second delivery and Sammy failed to make contact with the next two balls before also being caught at long-on. Roelof van der Merwe then played and missed at the last ball of the match and Pollard had bowled the Cobras to a sensational victory.

“It’s the culmination of those four games prior to the Durban game and to then get so close, it’s hugely disappointing to slip up,” Walter told The Citizen at SuperSport Park yesterday. “What I really like about Darren is that he has a massive sense of personal responsibility for the performance. He’s unhappy that the other West Indians are performing for their teams and he hasn’t. I don’t doubt that he’s giving his best, he really cares, and that’s what’s most important.”

If Wiese could have just hit the final-over low full toss he received from Pollard for six like the previous ball or even along the ground, then the Titans would probably have won the game, but Walter said it was important not to forget how the all-rounder’s heroics had dragged them back into the game in the first place.

“David has had a real impact since coming back from Australia, with the ball in the first match and now with the bat. He almost got us there against the Cobras and in an ideal world he would have hit a full toss for six – and in terms of his future development he must win games like that – but we mustn’t overlook the good stuff from him before that,” the coach said.

The Titans have two games this week –  against the Highveld Lions in Benoni on Friday night and versus the Warriors at SuperSport Park on Sunday afternoon – and Walter said there would not be wholesale changes, although a couple of fresh faces could get a chance to show what they can do now that the pressure of qualifying for the playoffs is gone. The coach is likely to leave Theunis de Bruyn at the top of the order to utilise the powerplay better with his natural strokeplay and Dean Elgar at three to rotate the strike after six overs.

The big positive from the Durban defeat was Adams hitting top form when the game looked lost for the Titans, the 30-year-old left-hander hitting four fours and five sixes as he hammered the Titans back into contention.

“It was great to see the different options Q had – he hit over the covers off the back foot, double-stepped to hit over the covers, hit over long-on and long-off and paddled the ball. It was nice to see that freedom of expression, it highlighted what he’s capable of. It’s also hopefully shown him that he can make a play when we’re in massive trouble, that he can go beyond a small 20 or 30,” Walter said.

The coach said he was also delighted with the good bowling produced by spinners Tabraiz Shamsi and Roelof van der Merwe.

“We’re trying our best to take the emotion out of the results, to look non-emotionally at the stats, the areas that were good and the areas that need more work. If you’re emotional then you overlook the good stuff purely because we lost, but we were one hit away from winning the game,” Walter pointed out.

Almost half of the field for the Nedbank Golf Challenge at Sun City has been confirmed, with Korean-born American Kevin Na, the world number 26, the latest player to confirm his participation in the event from December 4-7.

The 14 confirmed players includes half of the triumphant European Ryder Cup team, with Thomas Bjorn, the defending champion, Martin Kaymer, Lee Westwood, Victor Dubuisson, Jamie Donaldson and Stephen Gallacher all having qualified for the second edition of the new-look Nedbank Golf Challenge with a 30-man field.

The Race to Dubai, the European Tour’s order of merit, ends this weekend in Dubai with the World Tour Championship, and the majority of the Sun City field will then be confirmed. The only remaining places will depend on who wins the Cape Town Open on November 30 and who the top five South Africans in the world rankings are.

Tournament director Alastair Roper said the likes of Marcel Siem, Jonas Blixt, Louis Oosthuizen, Joost Luiten, Alexander Levy, Mikko Ilonen, Shane Lowry and Tommy Fleetwood were all likely to qualify and had entered, while he would be targeting Ian Poulter, Danny Willett, Sergio Garcia, Adam Scott, Brooks Koepke, the winner of the lucrative Turkish Open at the weekend, and Ernie Els in the coming days to secure their participation.

Top European stars such as Rory McIlroy, Henrik Stenson and Justin Rose will be heading to the United States that week to play in the Hero Honda World Challenge, Tiger Woods’s tournament that has moved from California to Orlando, Florida.

“I’m not holding my breath for Adam Scott, and Poulter, Willett and Garcia have yet to express an interest. Koepke is now sixth on the Race to Dubai and has not yet entered, but I’m going to try and get him to do that soon.

“Ernie is the fourth-highest South African in the rankings so he should qualify, but he has an injury niggle and I think he’s leaving it as late as possible to enter just to see how his fitness is. Dawie van der Walt is in as the winner of the Sunshine Tour order of merit and Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen are the next two South Africans on the rankings.

“Then there’s Ernie and Tim Clark. George Coetzee was in the reckoning on the Race to Dubai but has now slipped out, but if he has a good week now then he could edge out Tim Clark. But a lot of the South Africans – like George, Tim, Branden Grace, Richard Sterne and maybe Retief Goosen will hopefully be playing in the Cape Town Open to try and win that and qualify for Sun City,” Roper said yesterday.

If some of those golfers are culled from the list then the likes of Pablo Larrazabal and Romain Wattel will come into the picture, while South African Danie van Tonder has finned his way into contention through his performances this season. If Englishman Ross Fisher maintains his 18^th position in the Race to Dubai then he will qualify through that; otherwise he’s in as the leader of the Sunshine Tour order of merit. If Fisher qualifies through his European Tour ranking, then Van Tonder, second on the local money-list, will be making his Nedbank Golf Challenge debut.

The presence of at least three golfers of Asian heritage – Na, Thongchai Jaidee and Kiradech Aphibarnrat – will also enable Sun International to go on a valuable marketing exercise of their resort to countries like South Korea and Thailand.

Roper was also delighted to report steady rain in the Pilanesberg over the last couple of weeks, which apart from maybe encouraging the moles to burrow just underneath the fairways, should guarantee consistent rough and encourage the golfers to stay on the short grass.

Confirmed players: Thomas Bjørn (Denmark), Martin Kaymer (Germany), Lee Westwood (England), Charl Schwartzel (South Africa), Victor Dubuisson (France), Jamie Donaldson (Wales), Stephen Gallacher (Scotland), Dawie van der Walt (South Africa), Kiradech Aphibarnrat (Thailand), Luke Donald (England), Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spain), Thongchai Jaidee (Thailand), Ross Fisher (England), Kevin Na (United States).

Restoring Namibian rugby to its former health was the key project for union president Bradley Basson and chief executive Sybrand de Beer in 2014 and their success off the field was mirrored on the park by coach Danie Vermeulen steering the side to World Cup qualification.

On July 6 in the Africa Cup CAR Division 1 qualifier in Antananarivo, Namibia scored an emphatic 89-10 victory over Madagascar to sneak ahead of Zimbabwe and Kenya on points difference and into their fifth successive World Cup, where they will take on the mighty All Blacks as well as Argentina, Tonga and Georgia in Pool C.

Just eight days earlier, Namibia’s campaign looked set to end in tears of sadness as a shock 29-22 defeat at the hands of Kenya left their hopes of qualifying for the 2015 World Cup hanging by the slimmest of threads.

But by 5pm on July 6, the Namibian rugby team were crying tears of joy at the Mahamasina Stadium as their extraordinary victory over the hosts had booked their spot in England 2015.

Following that opening-day loss, just their second against the East Africans since 2006, results had fallen Namibia’s way to keep their hopes alive. The Welwitschias beat Zimbabwe 24-20 to stay in contention, while their fellow Southern Africans did them a favour by overcoming Kenya 28-10 on the final day.

Crucially, neither Zimbabwe nor Kenya managed to get a bonus point in that match, which left Namibia needing to beat Madagascar by 53 points to qualify for the finals of the global showpiece.

“We were down in the dumps up to the last day, but we just believed until the very end. We had the will to keep on fighting until our last breath, until all 15 of us had to be carried off the field if necessary,” flank Tinus du Plessis said after the triumph.

“We had a massive points difference to work on, so we just planned to take it 10 minutes at a time. It’s amazing to think that we’ll now be playing our first match against the All Blacks!” the London Wasps player said.

For Zimbabwe, who showed encouraging improvement through the year, there was a second chance in the form of the repechage, but they went down 15-23 to Russia in Krasnoyarsk.

Director of Rugby Liam Middleton left for Canada shortly thereafter and by mid-November there was yet to be a taker to replace him. But the Sables enjoyed something of a renaissance in 2014, boosted by the presence of former Natal Sharks and Lions SuperRugby flyhalf Guy Cronje.

Kenya will look back on their year with some frustration as they struggled with consistency. They managed to beat Namibia, but lost to Zimbabwe; they lost 14-21 to Uganda, only to beat the same team 34-0 the next weekend.

They will need to develop more consistency – which will come with playing more often – if they are to follow their Sevens team up the world rankings. Under the guidance of former Western Province loose forward Jerome Paarwater, they also competed in the Vodacom Cup, which was a valuable exercise for them.

They will also need to clear their team of doping allegations that were made by a Kenyan governmental task force.

While playing enough internationals is always a challenge for the African sides, Namibia have been able to fill their calendar ahead of the World Cup, playing Germany, Canada, the French Barbarians and Portugal after returning from their Madagascan triumph.

The last three games were on an invaluable year-end tour to Europe, giving the Welwitschia’s the chance to experience Northern Hemisphere conditions ahead of the World Cup and test their depth.

Namibia also hope to be invited to the IRB Nations Cup in Romania as African champions, which could result in another four matches, while home Tests against Zimbabwe and Kenya are also planned for 2015.

The Namibian Rugby Union are also in talks with SARU about their possible participation in the Vodacom Cup in the first half of 2015.

Germany were comfortably beaten, 58-20, in Windhoek, in a match that marked Free State Cheetahs hooker Torsten van Jaarsveld’s first game in Namibian colours.

Vermeulen was able to call on a dozen overseas-based players through the year, with Pumas flank Renaldo Bothma (recently signed by the Sharks) outstanding in the World Cup qualifier in Madagascar, while Jacques Burger, the stoical grafter of the Saracens loose trio, played for Namibia for the first time since September 2011 when he led the team against Canada at Colwyn Bay in northern Wales.

Fullback Chrysander Botha, who played SuperRugby for the Lions and was then signed by the Exeter Chiefs, was one of the stars of the backline before his year ended with a broken leg in the 13-17 loss to Canada.

The likes of flank Rohan Kitshoff and prop Jaco Engels, both stalwarts of the South African domestic scene, also added their experience and quality to the Welwitschias.

The dissent which plagued Namibian rugby around the time of the previous World Cup is now in the past.

“Rugby in Namibia was quite badly hit in 2011 when the exco resigned and technically we were insolvent. But the latest financial statements have been declared clean and passed without any qualifications and there is good governance and the basic foundation in place. We are now back to concentrating on rugby,” De Beer said.

An IRB report also praised Namibian rugby, saying: “Governance, administration and finances can be used as an example for many unions in the world “.

The IRB’s regional manager for Africa, Jean-Luc Barthes, said in his report that “I met responsible and very professional people who want to properly manage their activities and make rugby the number one sport in the country.“

The plaudits kept coming when they were named sports team of the year, Vermeulen won coach of the year and De Beer administrator of the year at the Namibian Sports Commission Annual Awards.

To add to the feel-good factor, the U19 team won the Confederation of African Rugby’s tournament hosted in Windhoek in September to qualify for the IRB Junior Trophy competition in Portugal in 2015.