Ken Borland

DP World Lions men’s coach Russell Domingo is backing his star players to once again stand up for our team as they go into Sunday’s CSA T20 Challenge final hunting for back-to-back titles.

Having topped the round-robin log and then convincingly beaten the second-placed Momentum Multiply Titans in Qualifier I, #ThePrideOfJozi went straight through to the final at the DP World Wanderers Stadium from 2pm on Sunday, and now they are just waiting for the final Qualifier to be played to decide whether their opponents will be the Titans or World Sports Betting Western Province.

It’s been another stellar campaign for the Pride, with Rassie van der Dussen, Reeza Hendricks and all-rounder Evan Jones in the top-10 of the batting averages and Junaid Dawood, the competition’s leading wicket-taker, Nqaba Peter and Kwena Maphaka making up the top three in the bowling averages.

“Particularly in the big games, you need your senior players to stand up. Reeza is producing some fantastic batting and Rassie is playing very well at the moment, he’s in really good touch,” Domingo said.

“Kwena is only 18, he’s a baby really in cricket terms, writing his matric exams, but he’s already a match-winner for us. He showed in that second-last over in Potch, how good his ability and maturity is at the death. He’s a fantastic asset for us – he can take early wickets and bowl at the death.

“Nqaba is a quality bowler too. There will be days when he is not 100%, but he’s also a match-winner who we back because when he has a good day, he’s spectacular. Junaid has also been fantastic, he’s put in a lot of effort, stayed patient and I’ve been very pleased with his bowling.

“The enthusiasm Evan brings is amazing, he has a great presence, he’s aggressive with bat and ball. He’s had a few niggles previously but now he’s in good shape and is a big player for us. He’s one of the first names on the team-sheet,” Domingo said.

Big-match temperament is not something on sale at the Wanderers Stadium Sports Shop and Domingo is pleased that our Pride once again seem to be peaking at the right time. Their seven-wicket win over the Titans with four overs to spare was an immaculate all-round performance.

“That was close to the perfect game, the fielding and bowling were particularly good. We’ve worked really hard on those things and I’m very pleased that we are arriving at our best cricket at the business end of the competition.

“The standard has been set and now it all comes down to what happens on the day. If we play the Titans, then they have so many match-winners, someone like Heinrich Klassen, who has just been retained for R50 million in the IPL. But at the end of the day, we are all human and it comes down to who executes better on the day, which team is calmer under pressure.

“Western Province have won four in a row and are also really peaking at the right time. They are a very dangerous, very streetsmart side and they know what it takes to win trophies,” Domingo said.

And so do the DP World Lions and the host of match-winning stars that make up the Pride.

Another season of the Women’s Premier Division came to an end last weekend with the Bulls Daisies securing back-to-back titles, and the attention in local ladies rugby will now pivot to the newly-announced Super League professional franchise competition recently announced by SA Rugby.

While the Super League would be a boost for the growth of high-performance women’s rugby in South Africa, there are still pivotal questions around when it will start and how it will work, especially in terms of player contracting.

SA Rugby said they intend to contract 150 women players for the new competition, with the provincial unions being invited to submit proposals for inclusion of a franchise in the new Super League.

But the Bulls, who made a groundbreaking move to being fully professional last year, already have 35 players contracted and the vast majority of those will be offered new contracts on September 1.

SA Rugby want the Super League to begin in early 2025 and have said the “centrally contacted players will be shared out among the teams”. Unless the 150 given SA Rugby contracts don’t include any Bulls players, there is going to be a tug-of-war over the services of the players who have dominated the Women’s Premier Division over the last two seasons.

“We will entrench our players,” Thando Manana, the executive in charge of women’s rugby for the Blue Bulls Company, told Rapport. “SA Rugby say they are going to contract 150 players and although it is good to have this innovation, we need to tread carefully in our rush to get this Super League underway. There’s definitely going to be a timing issue if they want to start in January.

“I love anything that develops the game, but we can’t wait for all the details to come out, we will be renewing contracts for the new cycle that starts on September 1, and some of those will be extended to two or three years. We’re not looking at what others do, we will be pushing forward in the months ahead to take women’s rugby to another level,” Manana said.

Blue Bulls Rugby Union president Willem Strauss said he would rather reserve comment on the Super League until they have more information.

“I don’t know much about it, but anything that takes women’s rugby to the next level, I will support. But I need to know the details about the Super League, hopefully it aligns commercially with what we have done with such success over the last two years.

“As a board, we are very happy with what we have achieved in women’s rugby. It was a brave step to go professional in the women’s game because the financial impact was negative. But once we started performing then we started to attract commercial partners.

“Our team has improved a helluva lot and this year we had to use a lot of club players because of national team call-ups. But the number of women taking up the game has expanded by 30% per year, which is fantastic because it shows that going professional is sustainable. There are more and more women’s teams joining the league, as well as youth clubs, which shows that the ecosystem is healthy.

“Plus the Bulls Daisies bring a new audience to Loftus Versfeld which is very important, it’s not a traditional Pretoria crowd. The Bulls Daisies have certainly added value to our brand of excellence and they are inspiring the next generation of women’s stars,” Strauss told Rapport.

Lynne Cantwell, SA Rugby’s High Performance Manager for women’s rugby, praised the Bulls for their top-class programme and said the aim of the Super League was to get the rest of the country’s players to that level of excellence.

“The goal of the competition is to make that leap into where the performance standards align. Once we get there, all the teams will be more competitive and the women’s tournament will go down to the wire, we want to get to the situation where you never know who is going to win.

“The Bulls took that leap two years ago and have led the way, and we’ve seen their big performance leap. You have to give credit to Western Province, and the fact that they pushed the Bulls in the final is testament to their pipeline. There are great signs of growth, they are swelling their player numbers and Boland have done this as well.

“The goal is to have all our premier teams to be like the Bulls, and then that will make for a strong national team. The Super League will be performance-driven, and hopefully that means teams can ask more of sponsors, they can pitch higher because of increased visibility. That will drive game standards and allow teams to employ high-quality coaches, physios, medics and strength-and-conditioning coaches,” Cantwell told Rapport.

The former Ireland star envisages a league with four or five teams, with each side playing eight to 10 matches. The Super League will not replace the Premier Division because it will be played at a different time of year.

Cantwell is keen on a draft system to allocate the contracted players, but she acknowledges the Bulls issue will need to be resolved.

“The Bulls have a significant number of our top players and it will need to be a gradual approach in terms of how we spread the top players around. The Super League will be our top-end competition, but it will take a couple of years for everything to be aligned.

“We want the other teams to have programmes that are the equivalent of the Bulls. With SA Rugby funding the player contracts, there won’t be as much pooling of players at a single union because we can say where they must play,” Cantwell said.

Hot weather and the ball flying for miles is always the norm at Sun City, but Belgium’s Thomas Detry managed to master the different conditions in this year’s Nedbank Golf Challenge and soar into a share of the lead after the third round with back-to-back 67s on Saturday.

Heavy showers on Friday meant the second round could only be completed on Saturday morning, with the golfers then only having a half-hour break before heading out again for their third rounds. Although there was occasional drizzle on Saturday, mercifully there was no disruption to play with the rain not nearly as heavy as forecast.

Detry began his round on the 10^th and immediately gathered back-to-back birdies and then another shot on the par-five 14^th. His next birdie came via a lengthy, curling putt on the par-three fourth, and he then finished his round in superb style with three successive birdies from the seventh to the ninth holes. The 29-year-old dropped two shots, on the 17^th and sixth holes, both par-fours.

His tremendous finish lifted him to nine-under-par for the tournament, the mark Rasmus Hojgaard got to on a sensational run that saw him eagle the famous ninth hole and pick up birdies on the par-five 10^th and par-three 12^th holes. The exciting Dane then parred his way home to shoot another 69, just as he did in the first two rounds.

Detry is a leading player on both the DP World and U.S. PGA Tours, and so he has had to learn to be adaptable, especially when it comes to the considerable travel demands and the different courses and conditions he has to handle. It is no surprise then that an unusual day at the Gary Player Country Club did not catch him offguard.

“With all the rain, the course is playing longer. We’re used to hitting Driver 330 metres and seven-iron over 220, but with the colder weather, we’re now hitting five or six iron and I think that surprised some of the players a little,” Detry said.

“It’s also wetter so the rough can be a bit harder to get out of, so it is easy to drop shots here and there. It’s usually hot, so the course is playing much longer than we’re used to.

“The travel between tours is tough, but I really wanted to make these last two events on the DP World Tour, so I flew from Mexico on Sunday night and only arrived here on Tuesday night.

“I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather, so to be able to rest most of Friday was massive for me to play 27 holes today so consistently. Getting a lot of rest and eating a lot of food out there gave me energy,” Detry said.

South Africans Branden Grace and Thriston Lawrence are both just one shot off the pace heading into the final round. Lawrence had the lowest score of the third round with a brilliant seven-under 65 and, starting his round on the 10^th, he had three successive birdies from the 13^th and then another two back-to-back on 18 and the first hole. The 2021 Joburg Open champion completed a bogey-free front nine with two more birdies on the sixth and ninth holes.

Grace lifted himself into contention with a brilliant 67 on Saturday morning, and then struck the ball beautifully again in the third round, but a cold putter meant he had to settle for a one-under 71. But he is in hot form and has the confidence of his 2017 Nedbank Golf Challenge triumph to bolster him.

One would think making back-to-back ducks would be enough to appal any batter, but Rilee Rossouw said he brushed them off before his emphatic unbeaten century in response in the third T20 against India at the Holkar Cricket Stadium.

And while Proteas fans may be greatly dismayed by the poor form of Temba Bavuma, Rossouw says the team are fully behind their captain and they have no doubts about his value to the side.

Rossouw of course has had previous experience of making ducks for South Africa, getting zero in four of his first six ODI innings, and yet he still went on to average 38 at a strike-rate of 94 in the format.

“As a professional sportsman, you’re going to have bad times, so you need to back yourself and believe in your ability,” Rossouw said after his 100 not out off just 48 balls decimated India.

“It doesn’t matter what your form is, you still need confidence. Form and confidence are two different things. And I really believe in my ability, I’ve showcased it around the world.

“It’s never about form for me, I have confidence in my ability and in my game. And I thank the coaches and selectors for backing me.

“If someone has a good day, then they can carry the weight of someone who is struggling for form. It’s the same with Temba, as a team we really, really back him, we will be there for him and every professional goes through what he is at the moment. But with his ability, he could be in the form of his life at the World Cup,” Rossouw said.

Rossouw credited another man who has been struggling for form recently, before notching back-to-back half-centuries, for getting him going in Indore.

“There was one shot that Quinton de Kock played that really got me in the mood – when he stepped across outside off-stump in the third over and whipped Deepak Chahar for six. That got my momentum going and it’s great to see him playing like that before a big tournament.”

The ball was also regularly coming off the sweet spot just below the chevron of Rossouw’s bat-sticker from early on in his innings, as he hit his fourth and fifth deliveries for fours. The left-hander hit sixes in the next two overs, and his third six took him to 30 off 15 balls. Rossouw went to his fifty off 27 deliveries, 30 of those runs coming from shots over the boundary, and he needed just 21 more balls to raise his first T20 International century, which included seven fours and eight sixes.

By focusing on playing the swinging ball and getting all aspects of their game to click together, Rossouw said the Proteas now head to the T20 World Cup with the confidence of a fine victory under their belts.

“With bat and ball, we’ve had things to learn in this series. We were shocked by how India swung the ball and we learnt a lot about our bowling in the second game,” Rossouw said.

“But we put it together today, we were outstanding in our batting, bowling and fielding. We played very well and we’re very proud of how we’ve finished the series. We’ll be going to the World Cup with our heads held high.”