The New Zealand Week:Best of Sports

Sunday, 01 Aug 2010

Wallabies smash Boks in Brisbane

Wallabies beat Boks

The Wallabies’ dominance at Suncorp Stadium continued this week with an emphatic 30-13 win over the Springboks in Brisbane. The loss ended the Boks’ hopes of a second consecutive Tri-Nations title. (AAP)

The Wallabies out-muscled, out-ran and out-defended the Springboks for the dramatic win. While the victory was very much a team effort, captain Rocky Elsom and flanker David Pocock had fine individual performances as they ‘out-enthused’ their opposites (Greg Growden, The Sydney Morning Herald).

The Wallabies ‘bared their teeth’ (AAP) after being told to show more mongrel against the South Africans. They succeeded, and were able to run the ball at will to score tries to wing Drew Mitchell and halfback Will Genia. South Africa also scored two tries, to centre Jaque Fourie and prop Guthro Steenkamp but Wallaby dominance at the breakdown caused the Boks to ‘bleed penalties’ (planterugby.com).

The Boks continued to show bafflement when confronted with the ball being put through hands at pace, and without a steady diet of set pieces to work with. They were also hamstrung by two yellow cards (Fourie for a spear-tackle in the first half and prop BJ Botha for killing the ball in the second - iol.co.za).

Johnson wins Masters

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Swede Richard Johnson put his recent putting woes and the form book behind him to win the Scandinavian Masters this week. Johnson, 33, is only the second home player in the past 12 years to win the title, and it is his first European Tour title in eight years (The Daily Telegraph, London).

Johnson set the home crowd cheering at the Bro Hof Slott course near Stockholm as his closing one-under-par 71 for an 11-under 277 total edged out Argentina’s Rafa Echenique (69) by a stroke (Reuters). Scottish Open champion Edoardo Molinari finished third, and the Tri-Nations took a share of fourth with Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa), Brett Rumford (Australia), and Mark Brown (New Zealand) all finishing on eight-under (AP).

“It’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever done,” Johnson said of the win. “This is a huge tournament to win for a Swede and I’m speechless right now. It’s epic,” (The Guardian, London). It was a dramatic return to form for Johnson, who had slumped to 161st on the US PGA Tour he has played since 2006, and 329th in the world rankings.

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Souths snap Warriors

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The South Sydney Rabbitohs “proved one obstacle too many” for the New Zealand Warriors as the Auckland-based team’s five-match winning streak was broken in Sydney this week (The Sydney Morning Herald). Souths prevailed 38-28 in a free-flowing affair, outscoring the New Zealanders seven tries to five after trailing 10-20 at halftime.

Wing Manu Vatuvei was at his dangerous best for the Warriors in the first half, setting up second-rower Lewis Brown from a palm-down from a bomb, and then storming past opposite Nathan Merrit to score himself (NZPA). A half-time rev-up from coach John Lang led to a fired up Rabbitohs run in five second-half tries against a Warriors defence that had only conceded 12 points in the last two games, against Penrith and Melbourne (SMH).

Ferrari stung

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Fernando Alonso got the win that he wanted in the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim this week but Ferrari were hit with a $US100,000 ($NZ142,000) fined for the use of banned ‘team orders’ (Reuters). Teammate Felipe Massa was in first place when he was ordered to move aside to allow Alonso to win the race. Massa abruptly slowed and was overtaken and finished third. Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel finished third (AP).

Slammed as ‘Machiavellian’ by The Daily Telegraph (London), Ferrari’s tactics and the impact they had on the unfortunate Massa were compared to a manager forcing a boxer to take a dive by The Guardian (London). Ferrari face being stripped of the one-two, which would result in Vettel being declared the race winner (Reuters).

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