Australia’s Stirling Mortlock became the highest points scorer in Super 14 rugby yesterday as he inspired the ACT Brumbies to a 37-15 win over New Zealand’s Auckland Blues.
Center Mortlock scored a try and kicked two conversions and a penalty to overtake Andrew Mehrtens as the leading scorer in the competition’s history. He now has 994 points, four more than the former All Blacks flyhalf.
Francis Fainifo, Patrick Phibbs, Huia Edmonds and Sitaleki Timani also scored tries as the Brumbies piled on five second-half touchdowns to claim maximum points and remain in contention for a place in the semi-finals.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The Brumbies play New Zealand’s Waikato Chiefs at Hamilton on Friday in the final round of the regular season, needing to win to reach the playoffs.
Auckland began yesterday’s match strongly, keeping the home team tryless in the first half to lead 10-6 at the break after a try from flyhalf Jimmy Gopperth.
But the Blues conceded 26 unanswered points in the second half to give up any hope of winning the match. Wing Joe Rokocoko managed a late consolation try, but the loss knocked the New Zealanders out of contention for the top four.
■CHIEFS V HURRICANES
REUTERS, WELLINGTON
The Waikato Chiefs surged to the top of the Super 14 standings with a 16-8 victory over the Wellington Hurricanes at Hamilton yesterday.
The Chiefs shook off the effects of jetlag after returning from South Africa this week to win the top of the table clash with their fellow New Zealanders.
The win put the Chiefs in pole position for a home semi-final with only one round of the regular season to go.
Chiefs flyhalf Stephen Donald scored all of his team’s points.
The in-form Donald landed three first-half penalties and then converted his own try early in the second half.
■LIONS V HIGHLANDERS
REUTERS, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
The Lions staged a second-half comeback to beat the Otago Highlanders 27-22 in the Super 14 on Friday.
The victory was their fourth in 12 matches and helped the home team rise to 11th in the table, on the same points as the Highlanders but with an inferior points difference.
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