World Cup champions South Africa yesterday gave the Wallabies a harsh reality check, leading 14-0 early and beating Australia 33-7 in the opening Rugby Championship match.
South Africa led 7-0 in the 10th minute when captain Siya Kolisi crashed over the try line from a rolling maul to give the visitors the lead before a capacity crowd of more than 50,000 at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane.
“We said as a group this is a big game for us to win, I am proud of the boys,” Kolisi said. “We stuck to what we planned in the week, we are a learning team.”
Photo: EPA-EFE
Despite sustained strong defensive play by the Wallabies, South Africa went ahead 14-0 when Pieter-Steph du Toit found an opening to surge through for the second try.
Another try gave the Springboks a 21-0 lead at halftime and the home side never recovered — despite Wallabies assistant coach Laurie Fisher’s optimistic comments at halftime.
“That’s a lot of heavy artillery coming at you,” Fisher said. “So we’ve just got to dust ourselves off, get out in the second half and just win it moment by moment.”
That never happened.
The Springboks went ahead 28-0 with 13 minutes left after their fourth try of the night then added a fifth on the ensuing kick-off.
The Wallabies got on the scoreboard with four minutes remaining.
It was the Springboks’ first win over Australia in Brisbane since 2013.
Later, in Wellington, Argentina stunned New Zealand with a 38-30 win as they outscored the All Blacks four tries to three in a setback to the hosts’ defense of their title.
It was only the third win for the Pumas over New Zealand in 38 meetings as the adventurous spirit of the visitors prevailed against an error-prone All Blacks side.
The lead changed several times before Argentina prevailed.
Argentina’s tries came from Lucio Cinti, Mateo Carreras, Franco Molina and Agustin Creevy.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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