Ken Borland

Heinrich Klaasen continued to display the form of old that first made him a Protea back in 2018 as he led the Northerns Titans to a comfortable 33-run win over the North-West Dragons in their CSA T20 Challenge match at St George’s Park on Tuesday.

Having been sent in to bat, Northerns were given a fine start by Quinton de Kock (34 off 17) and Theunis de Bruyn (25 off 19), but they still needed a good finish as they slipped to 78/4 inside the 10^th over.

Klaasen responded with a hard-hit 54 not out off 41 balls, his second half-century of the tournament, taking him to the fourth-most runs [226] at an average of 75.33.

With Donovan Ferreira scoring 37 not out off 35 balls, Northerns posted a highly-competitive 167/4.

Left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy was outstanding with the ball for North-West with 2/14 in his four overs, while Dwaine Pretorius took 1/26.

Veteran left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso then bowled the Titans to victory as his 2/13 in four overs played the major role in North-West limping to 134/7.

All the Northerns bowlers were tight, though, with Aya Gqamane and Dewald Brevis also both picking up a brace of wickets.

In the afternoon game, the Boland Rocks were left hiding their heads in shame as they failed to chase down a target of 165 against the Free State Knights, despite only losing two wickets.

Free State won a thriller by three runs thanks to an outstanding final over of yorkers by Alfred Mothoa (4-0-33-0), who had 11 runs to defend.

Boland always looked in control with Janneman Malan scoring 33 off 25, Pieter Malan batting through for 60* off 51, Clyde Fortuin dashing to 46 off 31 and Christiaan Jonker adding 17* off 13, but in the end it was an ill-judged chase.

Spinner Gregory Mahlokoana (4-0-24-1) and Nealan van Heerden (4-0-30-0) also bowled tightly to leave the Rocks with too big of a mountain to climb in the end.

Free State posted 164/6 thanks to a solid batting display led by Chris Klijnhans (52 off 47) and Raynard van Tonder (38 off 33), while seamer Ziyaad Abrahams took 5/34, the best figures in the tournament so far.

Western Province will top the log if they beat the KZN Dolphins, who are also still in contention to join Northerns and Boland in the semi-finals, in Wednesday’s last day of round-robin matches. If KZN lose, then the winners of the Eastern Province Warriors versus North-West game will be the final qualifiers.

The Bulls have lost the services of Springbok mainstay Trevor Nyakane but probably have five million reasons to be happy to let him go, with coach Jake White saying on Wednesday that he was “comfortable” with the versatile prop’s move.

The 32-year-old Nyakane, who played in 12 of the Springboks’ 13 Tests this year, has signed with French club Racing 92, and will begin his three-year deal in Paris before the end of the month. Nyakane had two more years to run on his Bulls contract, however, and the Pretoria franchise will reportedly receive R5 million from one of the leading clubs in Europe in compensation.

“Trevor is no longer with us, although we were going to give him time off until January anyway,” White said on Wednesday. “He was never going to stay with us forever and post the 2023 World Cup, I didn’t see him playing domestically anyway.

“It was always highly likely that he was going overseas and we haven’t had him for six months anyway, plus we were likely to not have him for big chunks of next year.

“He’s been fantastic for the Bulls and is a great team man, but in terms of return on investment, sometimes it’s the right time to release a player.

“We’re very comfortable letting him go and we are busy planning to get one or two other tightheads in our squad. It’s not ideal losing players overseas, but you don’t want to be paying big money for players if you never see them,” White said.

The former Springbok coach also suggested that the national team might have to go back to their previous policy of having zero overseas-based players in their line-up, in order to protect franchise rugby at home.

“It raises the question whether the policy of picking overseas players for the Springboks is going to last forever? Because long-term that policy is to the detriment of the franchises and that’s a fact,” White said.

“For me, the Irish and Kiwi model, where only home-based players are picked for the national team, works and they have been successful with it. Australia have the Matt Giteau rule allowing more experienced players from overseas to play for the Wallabies.

“At the moment I’m not sure the franchises get a return on investment because you have so many players unavailable for long periods and we have a salary cap. But we are not as affected as the Stormers or Sharks,” White said.

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber would have been delighted that his gamble in selection in bringing in several fresh faces and bodies for the opening Rugby Championship Test against Argentina paid off as his team dominated the contact areas en route to a comfortable 32-12 victory.

A new front row, centre pairing and back three was chosen for a crucial Test against difficult, physical opposition just a week after the gruelling series against the British and Irish Lions, and the energy they brought paid off as the Springboks made 21 less carries than Argentina but made 112 more metres with ball-in-hand. And the Pumas are generally considered to be one of the foremost teams when it comes to carrying the ball up.

“We made a few changes because of player welfare and the new guys coming in were nice and fresh. The guys who played last Saturday against the Lions are still a bit sore, but the new guys were climbing in today and we got a lot of energy from them. It’s only the second Test Argentina have lost since the World Cup and they’ve played New Zealand, Australia and Wales all twice.

“Our analysis and game-plan was spot-on though and the players really followed through. But we are only one-third of the way through our season and we have to box smart in terms of how we keep the players fresh. I compliment Daan Human on the new front row really taking their chance, he has an unbelievable vibe going in terms of competition between the front rowers,” Nienaber said on Saturday night.

It looked as if the Springboks would rue going to sleep a bit in the second half and not turning their dominance into more tries, and Nienaber admitted afterwards that he had forgotten that in the Rugby Championship the bonus point is awarded for scoring three more tries than the opposition and scoring four tries is not necessary.

The Springboks may have binned their marvellous display against the British and Irish Lions and are focused on defending their Rugby Championship title, but the mental challenge of getting up again after climbing such a high mountain in their last two games was also going to be a major factor against Argentina.

“We did really well because Argentina are a difficult team to play against. We had to try and keep our emotional intensity after the Lions series and that challenged us. We had to pull through somehow this week and I think it was a really excellent effort by the players,” Nienaber said.

The coach said the experience of players like Frans Steyn, who shored up the inside centre channel very effectively, Jesse Kriel and Elton Jantjies had also been a big factor in the Springboks being able to celebrate another victory.

“A lot went into this week after we had a couple of beers after winning the Lions series, and there was awesome work put in by the players. The guys were clued up and tuned in straight away and guys like Frans, Jesse and Elton brought nice stability. We needed some maturity out there and they brought a lot of calmness and composure,” Nienaber said.

There are many words to pen about the dominance of the Bulls in the admittedly insular world of Currie Cup rugby, but there just seems to be no stopping the blue juggernaut at Loftus Versfeld as they notched another comfortable win there on Sunday, hammering the Lions 40-21.

They put six tries on the board and their efficiency in all aspects of the game was too much for a willing Lions team. The likes of hooker Johan Grobbelaar and eighthman Elrigh Louw had mighty games, but it was how the side combined as a unit that was most impressive.

While one should deservedly wax lyrical about the Bulls attack, the defence was equally impressive as they fiercely protected their line. It is clear that this Bulls side takes enormous pride in their defence.

The Bulls led 28-14 at halftime, but it was the Lions’ second try that deserves full description because it was an absolute marvel.

The Bulls were hard on attack but Lionel Mapoe’s pass infield from close to the corner flag went to a Lions player. From behind their own goal-line, they launched a counter-attack, fullback Wandisile Simelane stepping his way all the way to the 22. There he found flank Vincent Tshituka, who produced a remarkable display in a well-beaten team. To see Tshituka galloping from 22 to 22 was an amazing sight and he then produced a superb offload in a double-tackle for wing Courtnall Skosan to score.

But the Lions could not add to that score before halftime despite camping in the Bulls’ 22 and throwing the book at them with wave-after-wave of strong carries. Apart from loose forward Arno Botha being yellow-carded as the penalties piled up, the Bulls suffered no loss.

After that the result was assured as they dominated the second half. It took them 15 minutes to crack some staunch Lions defence as well, with flyhalf Johan Goosen cleverly deviating from all the pick-and-goes as he sent a crossfield kick to wing Richard Kriel for a well-taken try.

His older brother David, playing at fullback, put his name on the scorers list six minutes later.

The Bulls are back on top of the log and look in good shape to book their place in the semi-finals some time soon.

Scorers

Bulls – Tries: Harold Vorster, Zak Burger (2), Johan Grobbelaar, Richard Kriel, David Kriel. Conversions: Johan Goosen (5).

Lions – Tries: Vincent Tshituka, Courtnall Skosan, Sti Sithole. Conversions: Jordan Hendrikse (3).