Adam Wakefield

There is an often-used phrase, slowly creeping on the borders of cliché, by the South African rugby media to signify the “what now?” question once a Rugby World Cup year passes. “Player exodus” along with the imposed biblical proportions of rugby players’ status in a sport where every second player is referred to willy-nilly as […]

Week 14 of the 2011 Super 15 is fast approaching, and with only a few weeks left till the “finals series” (feels like a bastardised PR word to me) the chaff is being separated from the wheat. The Brumbies are now certain to be the running punch line for this season, considering their own coach […]

A very interesting statement was made by a Cricket Australia spokesman on May 6 when questioned about the now shortened Test series against South Africa, set for this coming October. Australia are touring to return the favour of South Africa, having toured Down Under during December and January, both countries’ most profitable time for cricket. […]

“I have never cared very much for personal prizes. A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with Mr de Klerk, I was deeply moved.” This is how Nelson Mandela responded when asked about […]

For South African rugby fans, the current Super 15 log isn’t the most pleasant thing to look at. The Stormers do lie in “third” place but their inability to secure bonus points, with just one thus far, has seen the Blues move above them, meaning they are behind the Sharks’ eight ball. That’s because the […]

The 2011 World Cup in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh could be seen as a success and that is because the tournament had it all. From some tense finishes such as India versus England and South Africa versus India, there were also some fine performances from both bat and ball. Ricky Ponting’s 104 was a […]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th century American philosopher, lecturer and essayist, once said, “go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path”. That statement says a lot about how cricket fans in South Africa are or not feeling about the Proteas at the moment. First, let’s get the definitive out […]

When the new Super Rugby franchise was awarded to Melbourne, there was a healthy bout of scepticism doing the rounds in South Africa as to whether Australia’s second most populous city — with four million inhabitants — would take to rugby union. Melbourne was passed over in 2005, when a new franchise for the then […]

The gentlemanly fisticuffs that we’s seeing across the Sanzar universe at the moment, while first and foremost a battle for regional supremacy, falls into the shadow of a much bigger prize. Rugby World Cup VII begins in earnest during the middle of September but the majority of Super rugby players will tell the media that […]

It all started in India. The new generation, which had the great side of 1970 to follow as the last to represent South Africa, walked out on to Eden Gardens in 1991. It was India who offered a hand to a nation not yet three years away from the end of apartheid. Since then, South […]

The Presidents Cup is the rest of the world’s answer to the Ryder Cup. While the Europeans and Americans square off in the Ryder Cup, the Internationals, as they are called, are a team made up of the “best of the rest” from across golf courses the world over. South Africa has had strong representation […]

The Super Rugby universe has known the Bulls as the most feared South African team, with their large pack of forwards and unwavering devotion to the boot epitomising what many from Australasia think is the “typical” South African style of rugby. With three Super Rugby titles, second only behind the Crusaders and tied with the […]