Ken Borland

Madosh Tambwe had few opportunities to shine in the United Rugby Championship semi-final against Leinster, but he is determined to end his stint with the Bulls with a bang in the final on Saturday to pay back coach Jake White for his belief in him.

The 25-year-old has already played for a few clubs in his short career – spending three seasons at the Lions and one at the Sharks – but it is since joining the Bulls last year that he has developed into a genuine international-class wing. And on Tuesday he expressed his gratitude to White for that, as he will now be joining Bordeaux-Begles in France.

“Coach Jake has been tremendous,” Tambwe said. “He has challenged me in various ways and brings out the best in me, not just on the field but as a team guy.

“I have a great relationship with Jake and working with him has been the highlight of my career and hopefully I can finish my time with the Bulls on a high on Saturday.

“When I told Jake I was joining Bordeaux, he understood why I wanted to play in the Top 14 and the reasons behind it. Every good thing comes to an end, but I want to give back to him for uplifting my career.

“The one thing I can do is play out of my socks in the final to help give him and the team the win,” Tambwe said.

While Tambwe had a quiet semi-final against Leinster, he has certainly made his mark this season with his power and pace, and aerial ability on the wing. The battle of the back threes is going to be a fascinating contest within the final on Saturday because the Stormers wings and fullback have also excelled this season.

“When I moved here from the Sharks, Jake had Stravino Jacobs and Kurt-Lee Arendse as his wings and I had to work on having a point of difference, putting effort into my craft and my qualities.

“I help bring extra speed to the attack, retrieving the high ball and getting position back because that is the way rugby is moving. You need to relieve pressure in your half and put it on the opposition.

“It puts a smile on my face when a team like Leinster makes sure they don’t give me any space because that means I’m doing something right.

“And you have to credit the Stormers back three as well, they have played really well, they are great players. But it all comes down to Saturday and we’ll approach them like every other dangerous back three – if we close down their space then we will be in good hands,” Tambwe said.

The Proteas leave for India and their five-match T20 series on Wednesday morning relieved that Cricket South Africa’s office politics, which threatened the careers of their coach and former director of cricket, have now seemingly come to an end, according to captain Temba Bavuma.

Proteas head coach Mark Boucher’s position was under immense scrutiny as he was accused of racist conduct, while director of cricket Graeme Smith faced the same charges. An independent tribunal cleared Smith and CSA then withdrew their charges against Boucher, admitting there was no evidence to support their case.

Bavuma said he hoped the off-field saga that had raged above their heads was done and dusted.

“I think there’s a lot of relief in the whole cricket fraternity that these off-field issues have been resolved and put to bed,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “Hopefully we can now focus on what happens on the field.

“We should all invest as much as we can into that now. I think we handled the situation as a team as best we could. We’ve had many conversations over the months to make sure everyone is in the right space.

“We wanted to make sure there were no underlying issues between players or management, and I think those conversations really helped,” Bavuma said.

To add to their contentment, South Africa are going into the series with several players having performed extremely well in the just-completed Indian Premier League. None more so than David Miller, who helped steer the Gujarat Titans to the title in their first season, his exceptional finishing displays seeing him end the tournament with a strike-rate of 142 and an average of 68.

Where Miller is going to bat for the Proteas is going to be an interesting decision for Bavuma and Boucher.

“It’s always good having guys in form and David lifting the IPL trophy means he’ll bring good confidence into the team and it would have done a world of good for his own confidence,” Bavuma said.

“He performed exceedingly well and whatever feelings of insecurity he might have, he has never expressed those type of feelings to me. He’s an integral part of the Proteas team.

“We trust those sort of performances will continue well into the future. There’s always the conversation about him batting for longer, but he understands where he fits in in our team.

“But if he feels he can add more value in a different position then we can have that conversation. There’s no way we would stifle or restrict any of our players, we want to try set up and assist all of them to perform their best,” Bavuma said.

Like an aeronautics expert trying to ensure take-off happens at exactly the right time, Bulls director of rugby Jake White will be using the next two weekends of Currie Cup action to try and ensure his team peak at the business end of the United Rugby Championship.

The Bulls have already sealed a quarterfinal place in Europe, but their match against Ospreys in Swansea on May 20 could decide whether they will have crucial home ground advantage for that playoff match.

So basically White is looking for four straight wins in the URC to take the title. But his desire to win a hat-trick of Currie Cup crowns is also great, so he was quite happy on Friday to announce a Bulls team that is a half-and-half mix of URC and Currie Cup players for their match against Griquas on Saturday evening at Loftus Versfeld.

“It’s predominantly URC guys that I want to game-time to, but it’s a double-edged sword because we take the Currie Cup seriously as well,” White said.

“There will be another rotation next week for our match against the Golden Lions when we give some of these players the week off.

“But we can’t afford to give the URC guys two weeks off before such a vital game as the Ospreys one, it’s absolutely critical to try and get a home playoff. So it’s another hit-out for them.

“It’s an opportunity to try and get right the things we want to do at the back end of the URC and this team is the sort of ideal balance you’d want every week – seniors and youngsters playing together,” White said.

The Bulls have tended to concede the most points at the starts and deaths of games, and a team like Griquas can be lethal if you allow them a foothold in the game, so White said starting and finishing better is a work in progress for his team.

“We definitely want to start well. You work out along the way what works in terms of getting a good start – the warm-up order, your routine before the game or selection can all be factors.

“There’s no exact answer, but the more you get it wrong, the closer you are to getting it right. Once you find a formula that works, you lean on that. You try to find the right recipe, but sometimes it takes a while,” White said.

Bulls team: Canan Moodie, Stravino Jacobs, Cornal Hendricks, Harold Vorster, Madosh Tambwe, Chris Smith, Embrose Papier; WJ Steenkamp, Cyle Brink, Arno Botha, Reinhardt Ludwig, Walt Steenkamp, Robert Hunt, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Lizo Gqoboka. IMPACT – Schalk Erasmus, Simphiwe Matanzima, Dylan Smith, Ruan Nortje, Muller Uys, Keagan Johannes, Juan Mostert, Stedman Gans.

South African golfers who participate in the ‘rebel’ Saudi Arabian league will still be welcome to play on the Sunshine Tour, as things stand at the moment, but come the showpiece Nedbank Golf Challenge at the end of the year, they could find themselves out in the cold.

LIV Golf, with Greg Norman as chief executive, promises guaranteed lucrative paydays for their competitors, with the winner of each tournament taking home £2.8 million and last place being worth £97 000. The eight-event series starts at Centurion Golf Club in southern England next month. But much of the controversy surrounding the league revolves around the fact it is funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

South Africans Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace have all been linked with LIV Golf, while the PGA Tour in the United States and the DP World Tour (formerly the European Tour) have both threatened life bans for anyone who plays in the breakaway series.

Sunshine Tour commissioner Thomas Abt told The Citizen on Thursday that while they have their own regulations, they would respect the DP World Tour’s decision when it comes to their tournaments.

He said discussions will still have to be held when it comes to the five co-sanctioned tournaments with them like the SA Open. But the Nedbank Golf Challenge, which returns to Sun City in November after a two-year absence due to Covid, is entirely a DP World Tour event, so Sunshine Tour rules do not apply.

“We have agreed a strategic alliance with the DP World Tour, but they must do whatever they see fit in their tournaments,” Abt said.

“But our Sunshine Tour regulations state that a golfer must ask for a release only if there is a conflicting event in the same territory of Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands, at the same time.

“So we don’t have any rules to stop our members playing in events overseas, but the Nedbank Golf Challenge is wholly a DP World Tour event,” Abt explained.

The Sunshine Tour itself is in boisterous health with Abt announcing a new points-based order of merit, sponsored by Luno, on Thursday, as well as 35 tournaments next season, the most ever.

“Because there are such big discrepancies in prize funds between tournaments, we have introduced a tier-system for points to give the guys who support our tour through the year a genuine chance of winning the order of merit,” Abt said.

“The bigger events will be worth 12 000 points, but there are lots more tournaments worth 2000 points, so that those golfers who really support the Sunshine Tour can compete for top place.”

The winner of the 2022/23 order of merit will not only gain entry into the U.S. and British Opens and the Nedbank Golf Challenge, but have the use of a Jaguar/Land Rover for a year and win R500 000 of bitcoin from Luno.