Ken Borland

PORT EDWARD, KwaZulu-Natal – MJ Viljoen has been through the terrible tantalisation of not winning for five years on the Sunshine Tour but feeling very close to it, so when he finally returned to the winner’s podium at the SunBet Challenge hosted by the Wild Coast Sun on Friday, he was a little lost for words.

Viljoen, who led by one stroke going into the final round at the Wild Coast Country Club, played the steadiest of golf to seal the deal on Friday, shooting a two-under-par 68 to win by three strokes, even with a bogey at the last.

His last victory came at the Sun Fish River Challenge on September 6, 2017, but he has certainly had some near misses since then, with six top-five finishes, including being runner-up twice. Last week he began working with a new coach in Dougie Wood.

“It’s been a long time and I’ve just been so focused on winning again that I now don’t really know what it means,” Viljoen said after his triumph. “But I’m going to enjoy it and embrace it and take the weekend to think about it.

“I’ve been struggling for a long time, but I kept feeling that I was so close. I made some changes in the last week and they just sparked the feeling on the course that I have been looking for for so long.

“It sounds almost magical and I think it is quite magical. It feels like the start of a new chapter,” Viljoen said.

The 27-year-old had his game-plan in place from the start of the round, wanting to start well and not have to push too hard on a challenging course. Birdies on the second and third holes were like popping to the shops down the road and getting all the groceries you need.

“When I saw what the wind direction was going to be today, I thought two and three would be ideal birdie opportunities. I managed to get those birdies and then I was able to play par golf all day after that.

“It just set me up perfectly for my game-plan. I was never in trouble, I didn’t really hit a bad shot. I kept it simple and kept my targets big.

“Even though it was tough on the back nine, it came easy for me and I was able to par seven of the holes and birdie the par-five 16^th. On the 18^th I was happy to do nothing fancy, take bogey and get out of there,” Viljoen said.

Portugal’s Stephen Ferreira tried valiantly to grab the win as he fired a 64 that saw him finish tied second on 10-under-par, three behind Viljoen, alongside Pieter Moolman (67).

The four remaining suspects in the 2015/16 RamSlam T20 Challenge matchfixing case will be sitting uneasily after Pumelela Matshikwe was given a six-year sentence, suspended for five years, for corruption in Pretoria last Friday.

Matshikwe is the second player to be convicted for his role in the matchfixing scandal, and he pleaded guilty to unlawfully entering into a corrupt relationship with Gulam Bodi and two separate bookmakers for fixing matches in the 2015/16 season of the T20 competition.

Bodi was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2019 on eight charges of corruption for his role as the middleman in the scheme. It was the first time the Corrupt Practices Act had been used in a sporting context.

Fellow Highveld Lions cricketer Jean Symes has also been charged and his case is pending, while Thami Tsolekile, Ethy Mbhalati, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Alviro Petersen, who have all been banned from cricket, have not yet been charged.

But it is known that the Hawks Anti-Corruption Task Team under the guidance of the National Prosecuting Authority’s senior state advocate Willem van Zyl, is continuing investigations into that quartet of former players.

While Matshikwe, who entered into a plea agreement with the state, and Symes have kept silent over the case, Tsolekile, Mbhalati, Tsotsobe and self-styled whistleblower Petersen have accused Cricket South Africa’s Anti-Corruption Unit of racism and coercion against them. They began their campaign to have the investigation reopened on a well-known radio talk show based in the city and even repeated their accusations in the Social Justice and Nation-Building Hearings.

The SJN ombudsman, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, did not uphold their allegations.

Apart from causing immense pain to the South African cricket family, the four remaining suspects have increased their risk of criminal prosecution, with insiders saying the Hawks are determined to prosecute all the suspects one-by-one.

SUN CITY, North-West (16 October) – Lyle Rowe knew that if he kept knocking on doors one would eventually open again and Saturday was the day when his first Sunshine Tour title in five years finally arrived as he won the Blue Label Challenge at the Gary Player Country Club.

Rowe, one point off the lead going into the final round, shot a three-under-par 69 on Saturday for nine points, taking his overall tally over the four days to 33 points in the event that uses a modified Stableford scoring system.

That was four points clear – the equivalent of two birdies – of second-placed Dylan Mostert and was enough to give Rowe his third Sunshine Tour title and his first since winning the Zimbabwe Open in April 2016.

“I’ve been playing well for a while now and I just knew I needed to keep doing what I’ve been doing,” Rowe said. “It’s just a couple of shots every tournament and even though I didn’t make it easy for myself, I kept giving myself chances. I’ve gone back to the short putter, which gives me more feel, so I’ve been putting well and I’ve just been doing the right things mentally, controlling what I can on the course.”

It was also the Humewood golfer’s first win on South African soil as his other triumph came in the Zambia Open in June 2014.

“I was runner-up twice in this event in Swaziland, so I probably should have won there too! But to win on as great a golf course as this and in South Africa is special. I enjoy the format, I am quite aggressive and it shows I guess in that I get more birdies and bogeys, but a dropped shot is only minus a point while a birdie gets you two points,” Rowe said.

Where the 34-year-old Rowe really shut out the opposition was around the turn, where he played superbly to collect four successive birdies.

Despite bogeys on the 16^th and 17^th holes, Rowe failing to get out of a greenside bunker on his first attempt but hitting the next shot to three feet, Mostert was four points behind as they teed it up on the final hole.

But the left-hander sent his drive into the right rough and was unable to go direct for the green with his second. Rowe hit the perfect drive, laid up and then two-putted for a rock-solid par.

“I got nice momentum and confidence around the turn, which meant I went into the back nine feeling positive and I trusted myself down the stretch. I tried to get a bit too cute with that first bunker shot,” Rowe said.

Another left-hander, Ruan Korb, who was the second-round leader, fired the best round of the day, his 67 earning him 14 points and lifting him into a share of third with Jaco Ahlers on 27 points. Korb collected two eagles on the back nine, including one on the par-four 15^th when he drove the green.

Ockie Strydom was alone in fifth with 26 points.

Scores – https://sunshinetour.com/tournament-information/?tourn=BLCH&season=221S&report=tmentry~season=221S~alphaorder~#/home

One has to admire the Lions Rugby Union for the way they have been able to dig their way out of the abyss of financial ruin that faced them when they were relegated from SuperRugby in 2013. Just five years later and they are unquestionably South Africa’s premier franchise, the one most young players probably want to play for and producing a very popular brand of rugby.

But amidst all this success and SuperRugby trailblazing, there have also been messages coming out of Ellis Park that paint a picture of a franchise that is still anchored in the past in many ways and does not seem able to be the standardbearer of a future game all rugby fans should be hoping becomes truly the sport of all South Africans.

As much as the Lions deserve huge credit, one has to call them out for some of the mixed messages that they have sent out recently; as we have seen after another week of anguish caused by awful social media messages, perceptions are vital when it comes to inclusivity.

With Swys de Bruin jetting off overseas with the Springboks, the Golden Lions needed a new head coach for their Currie Cup campaign. But instead of heading for the safety of port and elevating one of the assistant coaches in Philip Lemmer or Joey Mongalo, or even promoting Bafana Nhleko, who has coached the SuperSport Rugby Challenge team as well as the Lions U19s and U21s and been an assistant with the Junior Springboks, they chose strength and conditioning coach Ivan van Rooyen.

Now Van Rooyen has undoubtedly played a very important part in the Lions’ success over the last few years, but his helicoptering into the head coaching job was inevitably attacked as being anti-transformation in certain quarters.

At this delicate stage in our country’s history, organisations really need to be sensitive about how their actions will be perceived by the majority. I am not saying it was wrong to appoint Van Rooyen, who played for the Lions at junior provincial level, and has gained some insights from Rob Walter, the former Proteas strength and conditioning guru who then became head coach at the Titans cricket team and enjoyed great success.

But the reasons for Van Rooyen’s appointment were never fully explained and even more shade is thrown at the Ellis Park hierarchy when Van Rooyen himself says he won’t be doing any actual coaching but is in more of a managerial role.

Why was this not explained properly on the day of his appointment, thus avoiding plenty of bad publicity?

The prospect of getting involved in rugby in Gauteng for a young Black player or coach is daunting enough without considerable barriers being put in their way, like the recent acquittal of Roodepoort U21 players on charges of racism during their April match against Wanderers.

While acknowledging that Sanele Ngcobo of Wanderers was “an honest and truthful witness” who testified that racial slurs had been made, the Golden Lions Rugby Union disciplinary tribunal ruled that because he could not prove who had specifically spoken the words, a not guilty verdict was appropriate.

For the physical abuse that degenerated into a mass brawl at the end of the game, one Roodepoort player was effectively handed a one-match ban! Talk about a slap on the wrist … and another slap in the face for Black rugby players.

To add insult to injury, when Wanderers were on their way to Roodepoort to play a later fixture, their bus broke down and they missed the game. The GLRU docked them five points, meaning Roodepoort now qualify for the Gold Cup instead of them!

Having reinvented themselves so spectacularly on the field, the Lions rugby union now really need to focus on the message they are sending out to their future market.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180825/282518659358786