As we head towards the sharp end of the inaugural Super 14, it is hard to ignore the fact that the usual suspects are lining up for a tilt at the semifinals. Adding an extra franchise to Australia and South Africa has done nothing to alter the bald fact that no one can beat the Crusaders, home or away.
South African coach Mickey Arthur has warned his struggling players that they need to perform in a three-Test series against New Zealand, starting at Centurion on Saturday, if they want to remain in the country’s long-term Test plans. ”I expect the players to have been toughened up after playing back-to-back Test series against Australia,” said Arthur.
Chadian attack helicopters fired rockets at rebel positions around the capital on Thursday, and tank fire and mortar rounds echoed through the city as government troops attempted to hold off a rebel attack. French fighter jets based in N’djamena could also be heard, but it was unclear if they were overhead or just revving their engines.
Those with a memory longer than a goldfish will remember when the average Anyone-But-United football fan disliked Sir Alex Ferguson with a passion. They will recall a general disgust with the actions of the groany old Scotsman, who dispensed all too readily with the services of his Irish wolfhound, Roy Keane, last year.
After opening firmer on Thursday morning, the JSE was in negative territory by midday. Traders said there was some profit-taking, but volumes were on the thin side as many players have already left for the long weekend. There was little fresh corporate news, so players will turn to global markets, the rand and commodity prices for direction.
Several members of a faction of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have broken ranks to rejoin Morgan Tsvangirai’s side, reports said on Thursday. Blessing Chebundo, the MP for the mining town of Kwekwe left the MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara earlier this week.
After Dick Francis took a tumble in the Grand National in 1956 he stopped racing and became a writer. Now, after a six-year break, he’s writing again. He spoke to Stuart Jeffries. Fifty years ago, Dick Francis was a few yards from winning the Grand National on the Queen Mother’s horse, Devon Loch, when something unexpected happened.
As the sun dips behind the evening clouds, staining the equatorial sky a brilliant orange, seven-year-old Josephine Atim pounds away at rocks with an aging and worn hammer. ”I am breaking these stones to make some money,” she whispers shyly, pausing briefly as dozens of other youngsters continue to smash stones into pebbles to earn a meagre wage.
A fresh wave of farm takeovers hit the southeastern Lowveld in Zimbabwe this week with Zanu-PF supporters and land officers seizing five plots with a ready-to-harvest sugarcane crop. The farm owners, most of them South Africans, have since appealed to the South African embassy in Harare to intervene, reports the <i>Zimbabwe Independent</i>.
The Big Easy sees a shift at the Masters. After Phil Mickelson’s second Masters victory since 2004, Ernie Els says Lefty may have eclipsed Tiger Woods as the golfer to beat at Augusta National. ”I think Phil has got the game there now,” Els said on Wednesday.