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Ken Borland



Rassie: Improving Boks’ discipline pivotal ahead of Rugby Champs 0

Posted on March 18, 2025 by Ken

Bloemfontein (July 20, 2024) – South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus said improving their discipline would be a pivotal part of their focus in the Rugby Championship after they beat Portugal 64-21 in their one-off Test in Bloemfontein on Saturday, despite playing with 14 men from the third minute and with 13 players for 16 minutes.

Centre Andre Esterhuizen was given an early yellow card for head-on-head contact after a crunching tackle on Jose’ Lima sent the Portuguese No.13 off the field with a concussion. Esterhuizen’s yellow card was later upgraded to a red by the television match official.

The Springboks also had wing Kurt-Lee Arendse yellow-carded in the 34th minute for a dangerous clear-out at a ruck, and debutant replacement fullback Quan Horn was also sent to the sin-bin after playing an opponent in the air in the 74th minute.

“Discipline is something we will need to look at after getting a red card so early. We had nearly 20 minutes with 13 men and the rest with 14, and obviously we won’t win World Cups like that. So that is something we will focus on. The incidents were all accidents, they weren’t things the players did on purpose.

“But we had to adapt to having 14 or 13 men, so that is a good thing. You get to learn the character of the players in matches like this. We had Duane Vermeulen next to the field and Gerry Flannery was planning how to defend without a blindside wing or a centre. On the field, the players can get rattled or stay calm, so there were big learnings from that tonight,” Erasmus said.

Conceding 10 tries but scoring three themselves was no disgrace for Portugal in their first meeting with South Africa, and their coach Simon Mannix said he could not have been more proud of his team.

“The lessons were enormous tonight and we were monstered in a lot of areas. The physicality of the Springboks was something else and the players felt it was two or three levels higher than what they experienced in the 2023 World Cup.

“I’m not naïve, I know it was a South Africa B team we played against, but they played some really good rugby, they have great athletes. We were beaten up at the breakdown and in a lot of areas, but we showed a lot of courage. I could not be more proud of the boys.

“We will learn and get better, but I’m very proud of the way we tried to play some rugby, especially in the first 10 minutes. We showed we can move the ball and go wide. This was an historic event and I hope the players will remember those first 10 minutes, we showed we were here to play and what we can do, we exposed them on the outside, which I was delighted about.

“We learnt so much about ourselves tonight, you can’t look at it negatively. There’s a huge gulf between No.15 and No.1 in the world. One of my players is in the fifth division in France and tonight he started against the Springboks. We have no full-time pros, but we have incredible spirit,” Mannix said.

South Africa kick off their Rugby Championship campaign against Australia in Brisbane on August 10.

Sunshine Tour give up trying to ram SunBet Challenge into an ever-decreasing window of good weather 0

Posted on November 04, 2021 by Ken

PORT EDWARD, KwaZulu-Natal (7 October) – Rain continued to fall on the already waterlogged Wild Coast Sun Country Club course overnight and with no play possible on Thursday, the Sunshine Tour took the decision to cancel the SunBet Challenge instead of trying to ram the tournament into an ever-decreasing window of better weather.

The event was originally scheduled to run from Wednesday to Friday, but the first round was postponed to Thursday due to heavy rain on the Wild Coast causing the course to be waterlogged and the tournament extended to Saturday.

At least five holes were still unplayable on Thursday and, with more rain forecast, playing a shortened tournament would amount to an unfair contest for certain golfers.

“There’s been no improvement since yesterday, there is still standing water on the course, the bunkers are full of water despite us pumping it out and in some fairways there is nowhere to drop the ball. So it’s unplayable for the same reasons as Wednesday and it would not be golf if we were to play. The rain just has nowhere to go because the water table is so high,” tournament director Gary Todd said on Thursday morning.

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    Galatians 5:25 – “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep walking in step with the Spirit.”

    There is only one Christ and all things that are preached in his name must conform to his character. We can only know Christ’s character through an intimate and personal relationship with him.

    How would Christ respond in situations in which you find yourself? Would he be underhanded? Would he be unforgiving and cause broken relationships?

    “The value of your faith and the depth of your spiritual experience can only be measured by their practical application in your daily life. You can spend hours at mass crusades; have the ability to pray in public; quote endlessly from the Word; but if you have not had a personal encounter with the living Christ your outward acts count for nothing.” – Solly Ozrovech, A Shelter From The Storm

     

     



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