South Africa's Stormers eked out a 16-16 Super 12 rugby draw with the Otago Highlanders in torrential rain on yesterday thanks to some last-minute heroics by flyhalf Gaffie du Toit.
All Blacks midfielder Daniel Carter, meanwhile, converted six of Canterbury's seven tries and added a penalty in a strong individual performance to lead the Crusaders to a 50-18 win over Waikato.
In South Africa, the Sharks played host to New South Wales at Durban and the Johannesburg-based Cats played the Wellington Hurricanes from New Zealand.
PHOTO: AP
On Friday, the defending champion ACT Brumbies and the Auckland Blues won their second consecutive matches to sit atop the standings with nine points apiece.
Wallaby winger Clyde Rathbone led the Brumbies to a 21-19 win over South Africa's Bulls, while All Blacks flyhalf Carlos Spencer scored one try and set up another as the Blues crossed twice late in a comeback 18-15 win over the Queensland Reds.
At Invercargill, New Zealand, Highlanders fullback Ben Blair kicked a penalty to put the home team ahead 16-13 in the last minutes after trailing 8-3 at halftime.
Blair slotted the second of his three penalties 10 minutes from fulltime to drag the Highlanders level with the Stormers for the first time in the match.
His last goal appeared to have swung the match, but offside play by a Highlanders forward when Blair had missed a late clearance kick gave du Toit, who kicked only two goals from five attempts, the chance to tie the game in the final minute and he took it.
At Christchurch, the Crusaders started both halves strongly but faded in the second and fourth quarters, allowing the Chiefs to close to 24-18 at halftime and to restrict them to one try in the last 20 minutes.
Tainan TSG Hawks slugger Steven Moya, who is leading the CPBL in home runs, has withdrawn from this weekend’s All-Star Game after the unexpected death of his wife. Moya’s wife began feeling severely unwell aboard a plane that landed at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday evening. She was rushed to a hospital, but passed away, the Hawks said in a statement yesterday. The franchise is assisting Moya with funeral arrangements and hopes fans who were looking forward to seeing him at the All-Star Game can understand his decision to withdraw. According to Landseed Medical Clinic, whose staff attempted to save Moya’s wife,
Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt yesterday backed Nick Champion de Crespigny to be the team’s “roving scavenger” after handing him a shock debut in the opening Test against the British and Irish Lions Test in Brisbane. Hard man Champion de Crespigny, who spent three seasons at French side Castres before moving to the Western Force this year, is to get his chance tomorrow with first-choice blindside flanker Rob Valetini not fully fit. His elevation is an eye-opener, preferred to Tom Hooper, but Schmidt said he had no doubt about his abilities. “I keep an eye on the Top 14 having coached there many years
ON A KNEE: In the MLB’s equivalent of soccer’s penalty-kicks shoot-out, the game was decided by three batters from each side taking three swings each off coaches Kyle Schwarber was nervous. He had played in Game 7 of the MLB World Series and homered for the US in the World Baseball Classic (WBC), but he had never walked up to the plate in an All-Star Game swing-off. No one had. “That’s kind of like the baseball version of a shoot-out,” Schwarber said after homering on all three of his swings, going down to his left knee on the final one, to overcome a two-homer deficit. That held up when Jonathan Aranda fell short on the American League’s final three swings, giving the National League a 4-3 swing-off win after
NBA team owners on Tuesday authorized league officials to begin an in-depth analysis regarding expansion, but NBA commissioner Adam Silver said there was no timetable for any changes. The NBA board of governors meeting in Las Vegas marked the first time team owners officially discussed expanding the league beyond 30 teams, but Silver said they went no deeper than requesting more research into the possibility. “There is a significant step now in that we’re now engaging in this in-depth analysis,” Silver said. “It’s something we weren’t prepared to do before, but beyond that, it’s really day one of that analysis. In terms
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