Oh, what a difference a little bit of hard work makes. Premier Soccer League (PSL) champions Mamelodi Sundowns, shedding their recent staid and costly work rate, produced a vintage display and roasted Benoni Premier United, the team known as the Rabbits, in a 5-2 drubbing at the Super Stadium on Wednesday night.

Unless affluent Premier Soccer League (PSL) champions Mamelodi Sundowns find their way back on to a path of respectability in their PSL encounter against Benoni United at Atteridgeville’s Super Stadium on Wednesday night, coach Gordon Igesund and his team could find themselves over a barrel.

Wildly excited over the prospect of playing in the World Cup finals on home soil in 2010, prodigal Bafana Bafana son Benni McCarthy seems less enamoured over the prospect of playing in the 2008 African Nations Cup — or helping South Africa get to Ghana in the first place.

In the very last of the four minutes of extra-time, Shaun Bartlett eluded a packed goalmouth of Orlando Pirates defenders to swoop on a headed opportunity for Kaizer Chiefs and made the score 1-1 in a throbbing Premier League derby before 80 000 spectators at FNB Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

When the Premier Soccer League (PSL) and sponsors Telkom came up with the slogan ”It’s a whole new ball game” for South Africa’s richest soccer tournament, it could hardly have been on the premise that the final of the Telkom Knockout would emerge as a crowd-pulling white elephant.

The cup jinx that has blighted Mamelodi Sundowns for the past six years persisted on Sunday as Ajax Cape Town squeezed into the final of the lucrative Telkom Knockout following a penalty shoot-out at Rustenburg’s Olympia Park. Hans Vonk emerged the hero of Ajax’s 5-3 penalty victory on a sweltering afternoon.

The Premier Soccer League disciplinary hearing involving various charges against Orlando Pirates and specifically midfielder Isaac Chansa was postponed on Wednesday night after it was revealed that the indictment against the Zambian international midfielder had been changed to assault.

Top Bafana Bafana striking prospect Katlego Mphela has rejoined Supersport United after his ambitions to forge a career in France with Strasbourg took a nose dive. Mphela played with a fair amount of success for Supersport last season while on a loan basis from the French club.

Diminutive Venezuelan international Jose Torrealba came on for Mamelodi Sundowns as a second-half substitute and scored the 54th-minute winning goal in their 2-1 victory over Maritzburg United at the Harry Gwala Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Torrealba replaced a sluggish, rusty Peter Ndlovu.