Ken Borland

The Bulls are likely to attack the next two weekends of Currie Cup action as hard as player-management allows, but they will be hoping the Lions and Sharks follow suit as they can do the Loftus Versfeld team a massive favour over the next fortnight by beating back the charge of the Free State Cheetahs.

The Bulls are sitting at the top of the Currie Cup log at the moment, but they are just one point ahead of Free State, who have a game in hand.

While the Bulls are hosting Griquas at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, the Cheetahs will be visiting the Lions at Ellis Park on Friday night. The Lions are bottom of the log and, given that they cannot make the URC playoffs anymore, they could well decide to focus on ensuring a better final position in the Currie Cup.

The Sharks then play Free State on May 14 and the Bulls would love them to take a strong team to Bloemfontein. But the Bulls host the Lions on the same weekend, before flying to the UK on the Monday, so that could be a pivotal game in their bid to top the Currie Cup log.

“We don’t know exactly what the other franchises are planning,” Bulls assistant coach Pine Pienaar said on Tuesday. “The Lions did really well in the URC at home, so maybe they want to end that competition on a high.

“They will show their hand with their selection against the Cheetahs this week, and then they could play the same side against us the following weekend. I would guess quite a few URC players would feature.

“I think there will also be URC players here and there in our team, although obviously some guys will be resting and there are a few players at the Springbok training group.

“We still see the Currie Cup as being very important, but all loading of the players has to be managed carefully. In some positions we don’t have as much depth, so we have to manage carefully when those guys rest,” Pienaar said.

Big calls will have to be made by head coaches Jake White and Gert Smal, and it is only going to get more complicated for the Bulls.

If the Bulls do win their URC quarterfinal on June 4 then they will advance to the semi-finals on June 11. That is the same day they are scheduled to play the Free State Cheetahs in Bloemfontein in the final round of Currie Cup action, in a match that could well decide who hosts the final.

The Currie Cup semi-finals then clash with the URC final on June 18, with the local final being played on June 25.

Not once has South African men’s hockey coach Garreth Ewing suggested that the FIH Hockey Pro League will be anything but daunting, and it will get no easier for his team as their next assignment sees them travel to Argentina to play the 2016 Olympic champions in two Tests on April 23 and 24.

Having hosted a leg of the tournament in Potchefstroom in February, in which they lost all eight matches and conceded 52 goals against Germany, France, India and the Netherlands, South Africa are now well aware of the high standards in the competition.

“It was harder than we expected, I must admit,” Ewing told The Citizen. “But it was really disappointing that it took us a bit long to adjust to the tempo, admittedly against very good sides.

“There was improvement through the tournament though and we were quite disappointed not to get a couple of results in the end.

“Although it was a mentally and physically tough tournament for us, it was a very valuable exercise based on the squad we had, the rotation of players and the opportunities we gave them.

“We also made some tactical progress in terms of the areas of the game without the ball – how you pressurise the ball and utilise space. And there were glimpses of good counter-attack,” Ewing said.

South Africa will be bringing a new-look squad to Argentina, due to the unavailability of some of their players, the bulk of whom are amateurs. But, on the positive side, regular captain Tim Drummond returns, having been absent during the local leg of the Pro League.

“We’ve had selection issues and the unavailability of players is an ongoing challenge. So there will be quite a few changes,” Ewing said.

“Having Tim back will make a big difference, especially in terms of his experience and leadership. We’re playing in Buenos Aires, so we’ll be up against big crowds, which we are not used to over the last couple of years.

“There are still some technical weaknesses we need to sort out, both in attack and defence, in terms of how we hang on to the ball when we have it and the pressure we exert without the ball.

“There was a bit of a lack of continuity due to getting things wrong at just the wrong time. But at times we were really good but just didn’t get good outcomes. We would get to the circle but just not get the ball in the goals,” Ewing said.

So South Africa’s gritty women’s cricket side fell once again at the semi-final stage of the World Cup, bringing an enthralling campaign to an end. So where to next for Hilton Moreeng’s plucky Proteas?

It is vital that the feel-good factor surrounding the women’s Proteas is maintained. While there has been a substantial improvement in the amount of investment into the women’s game in recent years, thanks to the sponsorship of Momentum and the increased focus from Cricket South Africa, there is still a sizeable gap when it comes to the amount of money flowing to the men’s game as compared to our ladies.

It is the same with every sport and Momentum issued figures this week which show that 61.1% of commercial investment in South African sport goes to the men, and only 4% of television coverage goes to women’s sport. This despite 40% of all sports participants being women.

The reason for this disparity is partly because of the lower viewership numbers for women’s sport. So if you want to support the Proteas women, make sure you watch all their televised games and encourage others to do so too. Of course they also need the backing of the television stations to actually broadcast their matches and it would also help if South Africa’s ladies could play more often.

Having unequivocally proved that they are one of the best sides in the world, and with superstars like Laura Wolvaardt, Marizanne Kapp, Sune Luus, Shabnim Ismail and Dane van Niekerk (when she returns from injury), there should be teams eager to play against us.

Although South Africa were rather heavily beaten by England in their semi-final, it will please coach Moreeng that his side won several desperately tight encounters at the World Cup. That showed their mental toughness. The main reason they lost by 137 runs to defending champions England was their shoddy catching, with centurion Danni Wyatt dropped five times on her own!

But that sort of fielding sloppiness can be fixed. It is actually a malaise that needs to be rectified across the board in South African cricket.

One also needs to give Moreeng enormous credit for the work he has done in moulding such a powerful team.

He became national women’s coach at the end of 2012, when they had recently finished fourth in the Women’s World Cup Qualifier, behind Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the West Indies, all teams they are now beating with regularity.

They only finished sixth in the 2012/13 World Cup, but the growth of players like Ayabonga Khaka, Luus, Lizelle Lee, Lara Goodall and, most especially, the magnificent Wolvaardt, has lifted them clearly into the top three in the world.

With the national team in such a good space, it is now time for CSA and their sponsors to give more attention to the domestic women’s game.

While CSA, thanks to the support of Momentum, now provide the 14 top national players with full-time contracts, wouldn’t it be great to see our leading provincial sides hiring players on a fully professional basis as well.

Of course they will need financial support from sponsors to do that, and sponsors need exposure, which in this day and age generally means television coverage.

Broadcasters want to know there will be thousands of eyeballs glued to whatever they put on the screen.

But there is no doubt the interest in women’s cricket is growing exponentially at the moment. The time is right for major steps in the development of the game.

Despite the Northerns Titans having eventually seen off a determined second innings by the Central Gauteng Lions half-an-hour before tea on the final day, coach Mandla Mashimbyi was not far from having kittens in the changeroom for the next two-and-a-half hours as they waited anxiously for the result of the Eastern Province Warriors match against the Free State Knights in Bloemfontein on Monday.

The Titans eventually bowled the Lions out for 273 in their second innings, Mitchell van Buuren leading the resistance with a tremendously defiant 107, remarkably, his second century of the match. He was ably supported by Reeza Hendricks, who denied Northerns for more than four hours in scoring 89.

But off-spinner Simon Harmer kept chipping away for the Titans and his 6/84 in 33.2 overs took his season tally to 44 wickets at an average of just 19.29.

Northerns were left with just 62 to win and they did that in 13.1 overs with seven wickets in hand.

But Free State were busy collapsing in Bloemfontein, slumping to 82/8, a lead of just 143, against the EP Warriors, who had declared on their overnight score of 166/3, still 61 runs behind. With the Titans winning at Centurion, Eastern Province had to win their game to claim the title.

It was a tactic that very nearly paid off as they bowled superbly in swing-friendly conditions, Mthiwekhaya Nabe leading the way with 4/26 in 12 overs, while Akhona Mnyaka removed Paballo Mogoera (4) and Raynard van Tonder (0) with successive deliveries.

Patrick Botha is being released by the Knights, but the Northerns Titans may be inclined to look kindly on him as his 38 on Monday, following up his first-innings century, was crucial in keeping the Warriors in the field until the rain came shortly before the tea break.

The weather never improved and the umpires finally called off play in Bloemfontein at 5pm, much to the delight of the Titans team at Centurion.

A new-look Titans side triumphed thanks to an impressive all-round effort in the competition. The whole batting unit all averaged over 40 through the season – nine of them in total – while Harmer was well-supported by seamers Lizaad Williams (10 wickets @ 12.60), Aya Gqamane (14 @ 28.57), Corbin Bosch (18 @ 33.22) and Junior Dala (11 @ 35.81).

It would seem all is on track with the rebuild at SuperSport Park, the Titans having also finished runners-up in the CSA T20 Challenge last week.

Scores in brief of other games

KZN Dolphins 422 v Boland 422/8 declared (Pieter Malan 219*, Stiaan van Zyl 48, Shaun von Berg 40; Eathan Bosch 3/56, Prenelan Subrayen 3/124). Match drawn.

Western Province 576 v North-West 202 and 242 (Wesley Marshall 58, Senuran Muthusamy 101; George Linde 3-48). Western Province won by an innings and 132 runs.