Ken Borland

Control, composure and clinical use of their chances were the main vehicles for success for Munster on Saturday evening as the United Rugby Championship defending champions continued their push for a home playoff with an impressive 33-13 win over the Lions at Ellis Park.

The Lions, who had hammered log-leaders Leinster last weekend in Johannesburg, gave Munster a ferocious working over, especially in the second half. But Graham Rowntree’s team seldom wavered, keeping a firm grip on proceedings by defending brilliantly and managing the game well. Their tactical kicking, and the speed and aerial skills of wings Shane Daly and Calvin Nash, had their opponents under pressure.

The territory stats (62%) favoured the Lions, but they were only able to score one try. They broke the Munster line a few times, but the scramble defence was also full of passion.

Winning ugly is often the mark of champion sides, but two victories in South Africa will satisfy even the most aesthetically-focused supporter. To be fair, Munster were helped by a Lions team that shot themselves in the foot often, wasting numerous opportunities inside the 22 through their own lack of composure.

Munster were 23-6 up at halftime as the Lions added ill-discipline in their own half to their lack of execution inside opposition territory. Three times inside the first 22 minutes the kicking tee was fetched for Jack Crawley and the polished flyhalf succeeded with penalties from 42, 47 and 45 metres to give the visitors a 9-0 lead and a solid start, especially when playing away on the highveld.

Having successfully repelled three promising Lions lineout drives, Munster then scored from their first maul to ram home the stark contrast between the two sides. Crawley’s excellent penalty kick put them in the corner and eighthman Jack O’Donoghue dotted down for the opening try six minutes before the break.

The Lions then suffered a mortal blow when they had a penalty on the halftime hooter but lost the lineout and then Munster won a penalty. Fullback Simon Zebo hacked a loose ball ahead and then chipped it over a sliding defender, and was bearing down on the tryline when he was taken out off the ball by Lions centre Marius Louw.

Referee Craig Evans, in consultation with the TMO, awarded a penalty try and issued Louw a yellow card.

The terrible turn of events for the home side certainly seemed to raise the hackles of the Lions because they came out breathing fire after the break. Halfbacks Sanele Nohamba and Morne van den Berg broke through at times, but the Munster cover defence was always up to the task. Both Crawley and Zebo made important interventions in this regard.

In the 49^th minute, the Lions were not able to cover as well as Munster wing Shane Daly went over in the corner, space having been created by a forward thrust through the middle off a lineout.

The Lions were 6-28 in arrears and threw everything at Munster for most of the remaining half-hour, but were only able to cut the deficit by a converted try, from close range, by replacement hooker PJ Botha.

And they could not prevent Munster having the final say, either, as replacement loose forward Gavin Coombes rounded off a rolling maul.

Even though the Bulls, who Munster saw off last weekend in Pretoria, beat the Ospreys with a bonus point in the earlier game, the title-holders were not going to be denied a return to third place in the standings.

Munster look an extremely difficult team to beat at the moment, such is the precision of their play, their game-management and their commitment in defence.

Scorers

Lions – Try: PJ Botha. Conversion: Jordan Hendrikse. Penalties: Hendrikse (2).

Munster – Tries: Jack O’Donoghue, penalty try, Shane Daly, Gavin Coombes. Conversion: Jack Crowley. Penalties: Crowley (3).

Teams

Lions – Hendrikse (Lombard 70^th), Kriel, Cronje, Louw, Van der Merwe, Nohamba, Van den Berg, Naude (Smith 62^nd), Visagie (Botha 50^th), Dreyer (Ntlabakanye 50^th), Alberts (Nothnagel 52^nd), Delport, Pretorius, Tshituka (Venter 56^th), Horn.

Munster – Zebo (Haley 55^th), Nash, Frisch (Carbery 68^th), O’Brien, Daly, Crowley, Murray (Casey 46^th), Loughman (Wycherley 55^th), Scannell (Clarke 68^th), Archer, Snyman, Beirne, O’Mahony (Ahern 52^nd), Kendellan, O’Donoghue (Coombes 48^th).

SUN CITY, North-West – This year’s SuperSport Ladies Challenge at Sun City from Wednesday has been moved from the Gary Player Country Club to Lost City, and Tandi McCallum reckons that is a boost for her chances, even though she finished runner-up in this event at GPCC in 2020.

That year, McCallum was edged out in a playoff by Lejan Lewthwaite, but the Johannesburger won the Sun International Ladies Challenge at Lost City in 2014.

“I’ve actually done better at Lost City, I won there in 2014 and I prefer it to the Gary Player Country Club, which I know a lot of connoisseurs will frown on. I just enjoy being there, it suits my eye and it rewards golfers who hit it very straight and putt well,” McCallum said.

“Lost City demands that you be a bit more strategic, it’s very firm on the side of the mountain and the undulating fairways mean you have got to be in good positions. The key is to be on the fairways, but they are so hard that you can’t overpower the course. I find Gary Player Country Club has more generous fairways.”

Fortunately for much of the field playing in the SuperSport Ladies Challenge, they will be coming from the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt, which required some advanced golfing skills and would have battle-hardened the Sunshine Ladies Tour contingent.

McCallum played solidly enough to finish in a tie for 13^th on 10-over-par, the winning score being Kylie Henry’s three-under-par 213. The Scotswoman is teeing it up again at Lost City, but many of the other European golfers have moved on to the Ladies European Tour, which has an event in Morocco starting on Thursday.

“I didn’t play super-well on day three when there were fantastic conditions but a very challenging set-up,” McCallum said. “But it was good to shake off any rust and I was very happy to make the cut.

“It’s great for us South Africans to be able to compare ourselves with the international players, but this week there is an overlapping LET event. Generally our tour has international players who don’t have full cards in Europe, so if they get a start over there then they will take it. But we will still have a very competitive field at Lost City.”

Veteran Lee-Anne Pace, who charged up the leaderboard on the final day at Fancourt to finish second, will be looking to go one better this week and LPGA star and 2022 SuperSport Ladies Challenge winner Paula Reto is also in the field.

A young up-and-coming talent to watch is 19-year-old Gabrielle Venter, who finished tied-fifth at the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am, her best ever Sunshine Ladies Tour result.

The chance of rain scuppering the Proteas’ chances is apparently just 2% and South Africa will be obvious favourites when they take on the Netherlands in Adelaide in the early hours of Sunday morning with a semifinal place on the line.

It’s the simplest of equations for the Proteas – beat the qualifiers and they are in the semi-finals. A defeat or a washed-out match would mean the winners of the game between Pakistan and Bangladesh would go through. Zimbabwe will also still have a chance of progressing if they beat India, but for that to happen and the Dutch to triumph over the Proteas would be two of the biggest upsets in T20 World Cup history on the same day.

Although captain Temba Bavuma said he was not concerned by the performance of the team in their loss to Pakistan in their previous match, the sloppiness of their display is clearly something they cannot afford to repeat. Especially not when they are on the verge of reaching the knockout rounds.

What was frustrating about their showing was that they did everything right for the first 10 overs, knocking over the Pakistan top-order. But their failure to bowl the right lengths in the closing overs was once again the burr in their saddle, Iftikhar Ahmed and Shadab Khan lashing quickfire half-centuries as 106 runs were thrashed in the last eight overs.

It was a cold, wet night in Sydney but that did not excuse a messy fielding display, with catches being dropped and straightforward outfielding being duffed.

In terms of the batting, Quinton de Kock and Rilee Rossouw both failed, but Bavuma and Aiden Markram did well enough to have the Proteas on track after the powerplay. But both of them losing their wickets in the same over, shortly before the rain delay, meant the revised DLS target was too stiff for Heinrich Klaasen and Tristan Stubbs.

The Proteas will be hoping the talismanic David Miller has recovered from his back spasm, and they know that winning their next three games will make this event their most memorable world cup campaign ever.

“You can’t afford to give teams momentum and I’m not going to look for excuses for our fielding display,” Bavuma said after the Pakistan loss. “We have been very good up to that game and we have fielded in the wet before.

“But mistakes were made and that was not the type of display you want at this level, especially in this part of the tournament. Maybe the intensity was down a bit, but it was definitely not the standard we pride ourselves on.

“Hopefully we play our best cricket in the next three games, the next one is a must-win and then we have the playoffs,” Bavuma said.

The Proteas Women’s team began their tour of England five weeks ago and their brave draw in the one-off Test seemingly gave them a toe-hold in the multi-format series. But since then it has been a mass of bad fortune and a litany of defeats, which does not augur well for their chances in the Commonwealth Games starting this weekend in Birmingham.

South Africa arrived in England with talk of competing on all fronts, having beaten their hosts in the T20 World Cup earlier in the year before the tables were turned on them in the semifinals. Sadly, there is little doubt that the Proteas have regressed since then, while England have powered on to new heights with a rejuvenated team introducing exciting new blood.

The Proteas have lost both the ODI and T20 series 3-0 since then, but there have been mitigating factors.

Regular captain Dane van Niekerk has still not returned to play since November last year, and key players like fast bowler Shabnim Ismail and all-rounder Chloe Tryon have also struggled with injuries. The shock retirement of Lizelle Lee, on the eve of the ODI series, must have been a damaging mental blow for the team and it is doubtful that it does not speak to some sort of cultural issues within the squad.

And now Marizanne Kapp, who has been turning in massive performances game-after-game, is back home, ruled out of the Commonwealth Games, due to a family emergency in which her brother-in-law suffered serious burns.

While it would be unwise to make a meal of the recent results given these setbacks, questions need to be asked about whether the pipeline is delivering the quality that is needed for South Africa to remain one of the top sides.

It has not helped that senior players like stand-in captain Sune Luus, stalwart batter Mignon du Preez and 33-year-old bowling spearhead Ismail have not enjoyed good tours.

It is turning into a very long tour for the Proteas Women and they need to pull things together with haste to ensure the wheels don’t come off properly in the Commonwealth Games. Coach Hilton Moreeng will need all his powers of inspiration to put this squad back together again.