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Play ‘em in Perth

I took history as a subject at school. There were only eight of us in the class, the more pragmatic having opted for biology or geography. The teacher’s name was Van der Merwe and he tutored in a high-pitched squeaky voice. But I never regretted his teachings. He taught us that those who ignore history […]

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Cool heads, warm hearts: Here’s to 2011

As the Boks head for Brisbane, scene of their infamous 49-0 defeat in 2006, the whines about bad refereeing are threatening to cloud the real problem. We forget that Richie McCaw was not offside while the All Blacks were scoring a record eight tries in their two opening World Cup games. Four tries a game; […]

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Grand Scam

So the Springboks have an end of season Grand Slam tour scheduled. Very tempting to knock over Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England — (throw in a game against the Barbarians for good measure) — on consecutive weekends after a full Tri Nations and a looming World Cup? Not! Simple solution: send the B team. So […]

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Señor Onion and my television hoodoo

Holed up at our beach cottage in the Eden district, I maintained an interest in the proceedings of the Third cricket Test between South Africa and England in Cape Town. Amidst mounting tension as the game entered its final day with South Africa needing seven English wickets to win and square the series, I deliberately […]

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Scrumboks!

“Scrum, scrum, scrum!” The immortal words whispered down from Springbok generation to generation. Someone must have forgotten to tell the vintage of 2009. The Springbok year-end tour is destined for the annals of disaster as the Springboks succumbed to their third tour defeat in a row against “SA – Racens” last night. The English are […]

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Will the castle crumble when the guard changes?

I had a feeling that the “Springboks” were going to lose to the Leicester Tigers on Friday night. The fixture reminded me of the torrid time the Irish club side Connacht gave the Boks in the lead up to the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Match feedback from that game recorded that the Springboks “played with […]

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Ties in the rain: A history of the C-word

By Peter Church In 1992, the Sydney rain came down on a gutsy SA cricket team’s bid to win the prestigious Cricket World Cup. When Brian McMillan and Dave Richardson returned to the centre, the revised target left them with 22 runs to score off 1 ball! Since that day, the Competition Curse has consistently […]