South Africa scored eight tries in a 53-8 win over Australia in the Tri-Nations on Saturday.
Left winger Jongi Nokwe was just one of a number of stars in the ’Boks side. He scored four tries in just his third match.
While the visitors were first on the board in the sixth minute through a Matt Giteau penalty, the whole first stanza belonged solely to the home side.
PHOTO: AFP
The hosts ran in four splendid tries, three by winger Nokwe and one by towering lock Andries Bekker.
Bekker found his way through the defense in the 10th minute after taking a wonderfully-timed pass from full-back Conrad Jantjes, who started the counterattack by hoisting an up-and-under on the Wallabies and winning the ball back in the air.
Fly-half Butch James converted the try to put South Africa into a 7-3 lead. Just three minutes later, Nokwe got the first of his tries when he went over in the left corner after No 8 Pierre Spies had picked up at the base and broke through the first line of defense.
Then on 26 minutes, Nokwe got his second after his pack had won a tight-head at the scrum. The ball was shifted wide and the winger had the easiest of run-ins for the try. James then added three points with a penalty before Nokwe sealed an outstanding first half for the ’Boks with his third try.
Australia though could have scored early on after Victor Matfield had failed to win a ball in a line-out just 10m out from the line.
The throw in by Bismarck du Plessis went straight into the hands of James Horwill, but he stopped just short of the line and, after a few more lunges at the line by his teammates, the Wallabies eventually turned the ball over.
Winger Lote Tuqiri also bungled a golden chance after 15 minutes when he failed to control a pass on the left touchline with no defenders in front of him. The ’Boks kept up their assault on the Australian defense from the off in the second period and quickly added two further tries to their score.
First, center Adrian Jacobs cut through the Australian midfield after collecting a pass from Jean de Villiers and then he stepped beautifully to beat Peter Hynes to score the fifth five-pointer.
Left winger Nokwe then wrapped up his afternoon’s work with his fourth try when he went looking for work on the right side of the field, took an inside pass from winger Odwa Ndungane and scored to put South Africa 39-3 up. Nokwe left the field shortly afterward with an injury.
The Wallabies pulled a try back before 60 minutes were up when replacement Drew Mitchell went over in the left corner.
The hosts though finished in style, scoring tries seven and eight from replacement Ruan Pienaar and Odwa Ndungane.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier