Three opportunistic tries by the Lions in the dying minutes of the match against England’s Saracens handed the Currie Cup side a convincing 43-27 victory. Lions substitute hooker Schalk Brits began the Lions’ comeback in the 29th minute of the second half after the Ellis Park outfit had found themselves trailing 27-22.

Double medallist Roland Schoeman was back in action at the Olympic Games on Thursday morning to qualify through the men’s 50m freestyle heats along with relay gold medallist Lyndon Ferns. Meanwhile, the South African men’s hockey team lost their third pool match against The Netherlands 3-2, having led 2-1 at half-time.

Five weightlifters have tested positive for banned drugs and have missed their chance at Olympic glory, officials said on Thursday. They are male lifters Viktor Chislean of Moldova, Zoltan Kecskes of Hungary and women Sule Sahbaz of Turkey, Pratima Kumari Na of India and Morocco’s Wafa Ammouri.

Bafana Bafana stunned Tunisia with a 2-0 defeat in an international friendly in Tunis on Wednesday night. Benni McCarthy and Tyrene Arendse scored both goals in the second and 81st minutes respectively. The result augurs well for the Stuart Baxter-led South Africans, who will visit the Democratic Republic of Congo next month for the World Cup and African Nations Cup 2006 qualifiers in Germany and Egypt.

South Africa have a chance to make up for their Test series loss to Sri Lanka as they get ready for a series of five one-day internationals starting on Friday. South Africa lost to Sri Lanka in a Test series for the first time as they went down tamely in the second and final match last week, leaving captain Graeme Smith wondering what went wrong.

The saga continues in the men’s pair at the rowing. In the 2 000m semifinals, the South African team led the Canadians with only metres to go. The Canadian boat moved across their lane, clashing oars with the South Africans who then finished fourth. A protest resulted in Canada being disqualified.

South Africa’s Leigh-Ann Naidoo and Julia Willand lost their final beach-volleyball pool match against Italy two sets to love to end their Olympic competition. The pair fought hard throughout the match, drawing even at five and again at nine points before Italians Daniella Gattelli and Lucilla Perrota opened up a three-point lead.

An offensive against Shi’ite militiamen in the holy city of Najaf would be launched within hours unless radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr publicly disarmed his Mehdi Army, Iraqi Minister of State Kassem Daoud said on Thursday. The fiery cleric must also submit names of all people tried by his religious courts and release all detainees, including Iraqi police, soldiers and national guardsmen, ”otherwise the coming hours will be decisive,” he added.

On a day in which South Africa’s highly rated rowing pair nearly crashed out of the Olympic Games — literally — and medal prospect Janus Robberts ”tensed up” to fail in his shot-put quest, Roland Schoeman flew the flag high for South Africa. Archer Kirsten Lewis was unable to unseat Atlanta silver medallist Ying He of China.

Dutch swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband retained his Olympic 100m freestyle crown on Wednesday as two controversial Greek sprinters quit the Games and world records tumbled. Meanwhile, the athletics programme began with the men’s and women’s shot put taking place at the historic site of ancient Olympia.