The Coastal Sharks of South Africa climbed three places to the top of the Super 14 table after an impressive 35-14 win over the ACT Brumbies of Australia on Saturday.
The Durban franchise led 14-7 at the break and a five-try haul earned them only their second bonus point in seven matches.
It was the Sharks’ first home game after a four-week tour of Australasia, where they won three of four outings.
The Sharks have a three-point advantage over the second-placed New South Wales Waratahs of Australia while the Waikato Chiefs of New Zealand lie third and the Northern Bulls of South Africa in fourth place.
With a string of home matches to come, the Sharks are favored to end the league phase in top place and secure a home semi-final. For the Brumbies, who suffered a surprise defeat at the Golden Lions last weekend, it was another disappointing outing that left them 10th, 13 points adrift of the Sharks.
Victorious captain Johann Muller said it was important to maintain the momentum after their successful tour.
“I was especially happy with our second half showing as we put some phases together, built pressure and from that the tries came. It was a good team effort,” he said.
The Sharks dominated the early phases, with Rory Kockott and JP Pietersen missing opportunities to score before Pietersen opened the scoring on 14 minutes with a well-taken try after a turnover deep in Brumbies territory.
Minutes later Christian Leiliafano exploited a gaping hole in the Sharks’ defense to score next to the posts for a converted try to level the scores, but the visitors would only get on to the scoreboard again late in the second half.
In between it was all Sharks, who scored a further four tries.
Fullback Stefan Terblanche ran in the Sharks’ second try seven minutes from half-time after his forwards had won another turnover and straight after the resumption it was the turn of scrum-half Kockott to score.
He converted his try to give the 2007 runners-up a 21-7 lead.
The home side continued to heap pressure on the Australians and on 55 minutes flanker Jacques Botes went over after a quick free kick by Kockott for the bonus point and No. 8 Ryan Kankowski added a fifth try seven minutes from the final whistle.
The Brumbies’ late consolation try came from replacement hooker Salesi Ma’afu and Mark Gerrard converted again.
■HURRICANES V LIONS
AFP, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
Early and late try scoring bursts fashioned a 38-32 Super 14 victory for Wellington Hurricanes of New Zealand over Golden Lions of South Africa on Saturday.
Victory in the opening match of their tour lifted Hurricanes three places to fifth, six points behind the pacesetting Sharks, who they face in Durban next weekend.
Although the troubled Lions collected two bonus points for scoring four tries and losing by less than eight points, they remain second last ahead of an Australasia adventure beginning in New Zealand on Saturday.
Hurricanes captain and All Blacks No. 8 Rodney So’oialo attributed the victory in perfect conditions at Ellis Park to fighting spirit, especially during the closing stages.
Marloon Herrera was crying — happy tears. With Cuba trailing in the fifth inning of its Little League World Series (LLWS) opener on Thursday, Herrera lined a two-run double to give his team the lead. When the Czech Republic, representing Europe-Africa, made a pitching change, he ran over to give his third base coach a hug. Cuba went on to win 4-1. It was the first game at this year’s tournament for both sides, but it was also the beginning of Cuba’s second appearance in the series ever — and it was emotional. “You breathe baseball in Cuba,” manager Everaldo Machado said on
Taiwan on Friday beat Australia 11-0 at the Little League World Series in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Taiwan are represented at the tournament by Taoyuan’s Gueishan Elementary School, who won the Asia-Pacific regional tournament to earn the trip to the US. Australia are represented by the Hills Red team from Sydney. Taiwan advanced to a game tomorrow against Santa Clara, representing Cuba, who won 4-1 against the Czech Republic’s Brno, the Europe-Africa regional qualifiers. Australian starter Sayre Howick had a tough time controlling his pitches at Volunteer Stadium, one of which allowed Taiwan to open their account. They scored six in the inning and
World Boxing, an international amateur boxing organization formed last year after a breakdown in relations between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Boxing Association (IBA), has announced the admission of Taiwan, along with four other nations, into its growing list of members. In a statement released on its Web site on Friday, the Swiss- based organization said that in addition to Taiwan, admitted as Chinese Taipei, Bhutan, Ecuador, Fiji and Pakistan have also become members. The new members all have well-rounded national and international boxing programs as well as transparency in the leadership and management of their national boxing programs,
COOLED DOWN: Du Plessis apologized after the fight for comments about his Nigerian-born opponent, after Adesanya said he planned to take the belt back to Africa South African Dricus du Plessis yesterday took a flurry of body hits across four rounds before defeating Israel Adesanya by submission to retain his middleweight championship at UFC 305. After scoring some early takedowns, Du Plessis (22-2) had to withstand a flurry of body strikes from Adesanya through the middle rounds, which appeared to be taking a toll on the 30-year-old South African as the fight progressed. However, a left hook followed by three rights helped bring Adesanya down, giving Du Plessis the opening he wanted as he swiftly got the choke hold that forced the Nigerian-born New Zealander to tap out