SA Rocks

If you were at the Tri Nations game last week Saturday you probably flew a flag. If you did fly a flag you were part of a successful world record attempt.

South Africans smashed the previous record of flags flown at one time which stood at 6 600. The auditors are apparently still working like crazy to get the final numbers in but they are projecting close to 90 000 flags were flown at the South Africa vs New Zealand game at the FNB Stadium.

Here’s the story from ewn.co.za

Free flags were handed out at the FNB Stadium and auditors believe the final number was in the region of 90,000. The previous record was 6,600.

Deputy MD of Draft FCB, Heidi Nelson, said they were just waiting for the final official confirmation.

“We just need the auditing process to happen with Guinness and for them to actually issue out with the certificate that says we have claimed the record but for all intents and purposes, South Africans did us proud on Saturday and we have broken the record,” she said.

*UPDATE: Tinus chimed in and kindly sent through the official image being used to verify the record. Here’s a snippet:

For the full, impressive image click here.

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It’s been a relatively good weekend for South African sports.

Bafana Bafana played great football on Saturday but sadly lost to Spain 2-0. In spite of the final score I felt that the lads played one helluva game and improved their football tenfold from their first performance in the Confederations Cup.

Now, lets just hope that Bafana can hold a MASSIVE upset and defeat Brazil in the semi-final. Surprisingly Egypt did not make it through to the semi’s. I think after their historic victory over World Champions Italy, they deserved to pip the USA and go through. Alas it was not to be.

And the Bokke pulled off a lucky victory against the British and Irish Lions on Saturday. I say lucky because we technically received a thumping in the second half of the match. A great performance in the first half put us up by a fair amount. The Beast had a ripper of a game and destroyed the scrums for the Lions. When he was replaced. Things went bad.

I am impressed with Mr Peter de Villiers and his response. He took blame for making substitutions too early in the game. This most definitely put us in a tricky slot. We handled it well and luckily came away with a win.

Finally, yes in case you had forgotten, we still lost the T20 semi-final. Pakistan however, ended up winning the tournament. Congratulations to them!

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Keep the springbok rugby emblem, I don’t think you can certifiably state with certainty that majority of South Africans are offended by the emblem.

image: lionsrock

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Finally the Bokke have managed to win in NZ’s house of pain. Bloody fantastic news. Not only are we world champions, but we are #1 on the log and our new coach Peter de Villiers gets a win to boost his campaign.

All in all, great news. Oh and apparently there is a chance we could “secure” a draw in the cricket.

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They’ve done it again. This time the Boks have won World Team of the Year at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Saint Petersburg, Russia on Monday night.

I love it. It never stops with SA Rugby. OK, so it does stop, but only temporarily. It seems as though rugby has become a sport of unity for SA in recent years.

Some of the team members present at the awards and ready to take it on were International Rugby Board (IRB) Coach of the Year Jake White, accompanied by IRB Player of the Year Bryan Habana, former IRB Player of the Year Schalk Burger, the top points’ scorer at the World Cup Percy Montgomery, and fellow World Cup winners’ Butch James and Bakkies Botha.

I really think that this team will go down in sport as one of the greatest in any sport. I would’ve said this before the Laureus anyway but at least now I can say it with some semblance of reason.

It is a proud day when a South African team takes on the world at their sport and wins. It is also a proud day when a team is names Team of the Year in any discipline. The other nominees for the Laureus World Team of the Year Award were Italian football team AC Milan, the Australian Cricket Team, Ferrari, the German Women’s Football Team and the Iraqi Football Team. The Laureus World Sports Awards is the only global sports awards honouring the greatest sportsmen and women across all sports each year.

What a pleasure to have beaten out the Italians, Australians and Germans in one award. Just goes to show that if the competition is good, the winner needs to be great.

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What do you think about this?

Should this be a race issue, is the team rejecting the man, is the media overplaying the race card?

Should the team have the power to attempt to reject Peter de Villiers? I don’t think so. I think they need to put up and play.

I also think I need to quickly say something about support and fanatacism in SA. Let’s put it this way. Peter de Villiers is screwed. The man has the toughest four years ahead of him. He can expect SA fans to hate him when we lose, love him when we win and use his race against him. We can expect some sort of media rumble about the Bok camp being in a mess.

And we can expect that the Springboks WILL NOT WIN the next World Cup. As fans we need to be realistic and factually accurate. No team has won it twice in a row, No coach has either so let us not put that much pressure on de Villiers. I think that a more reasonable goal is for our teams to perform well again in the Super 14 and to try and win the tri-Nations tournament. That is a realist goal in my opinion.

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South Africans are everywhere and this is just more proof.

South African prop Rhys Thomas (Who I know via association) has been picked to start against the Springboks in the upcoming test on Saturday.

Thomas has been on the Wales bench for a while now and I have been waiting patiently for him to get a start. Looks like it’s finally going to happen. He has battled with an unforeseen injury recently but seems to be fit as fiddle for Saturday’s test.

From Supersport:

“I know him well,” Springbok coach Jake White said on Tuesday. “He still played in South Africa when I was recruiting players for the Lions.

“He was earmarked to play big rugby but developed slower than expected. But prop forwards tend to develop late. He is a good player and I am happy for his sake.”

Thomas, who was born in Johannesburg on July 31, 1982, will scrum down against CJ van der Linde in the match at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

Known for his ability as a ball carrier and for the power in his legs, Thomas returned to Newport, his father’s birthplace, after playing for KES.

It’s great to see South Africans showing some success but it is a pity that Thomas isn’t playing for SA in some capacity. It seems as though SARFU just can’t hang on to some players here.

Rugby is fast becoming big business (if it isn’t that already) and no one can berate Thomas for going to Wales.

It’s also nice to see a Gauteng school (KES) being represented abroad.

Good luck to Thomas on Saturday but I must say: GO THE BOKKE!!

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What is the story with SA soccer?

Our entire country is pumped with the 2010 drug of anticipation and our foreigner coach is taking our cash and losing to every possible opponent.

Firstly, why don’t we have a South African coaching the team? Secondly, let’s see some damn results before we pay the guy a gazillion rand a month. I think his salary is moronic when he keeps playing losing matches.

Then, what happened to all the local players playing Internationally? Are they back? Maybe we do need them, maybe it’s not such a great idea to tell the greats that our country has that we don’t need them to win and then lose to the USA? Just a thought.

Does anyone have more insight on this saddening topic?

I was out this weekend somewhere when I got chatting to a guy who was going to the game between the USA and SA. He was depresses and we hadn’t even lost yet. But he knew it was coming. The first words out of his mouth about the topic was regarding embarrassment in the 2010 World Cup when we go out in the first round.

This is not way to think about sport. What the hell has gone on in the culture of soccer in SA? Rugby we expect to win, cricket we are depressed when we lose but soccer the expected result is a loss.

How about the sporting powers that be in SA stop dwindling on the Springboks (who won a world cup) and start focussing their attention on the dreadful Bafana Bafana?

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I just recieved the below email from a friend. The principal is grand, the sentiments are nice but I just don’t get it.

As part of the South African Rugby watching public, we collectively spend millions of Rands each year, watching and following our National Rugby side the Springboks. We also spend thousands of Rands buying branded items such as Rugby Jerseys and Flags etc. We know we have contributed to the financial success of SARFU through gate fees and sponsorships due to companies advertising on TV and in stadiums whilst they have a captive audience, and as such we have a vested interest in the continuing success of our national side. Despite SARFU’s best efforts to derail the Springboks World Cup Campaign, Jake White, John Smit and the current crop of Springboks have overcome incredible odds and challenges, the biggest of which were from there own governing body, to be crowned world champions. The victory Parades have not yet finished and again SARFU is meddling with the pride of a nation and doing its best to ensure South Africa will be World Champions in name only for the next 4 years. (I don’t see us winning too many tests with these clowns at the helm) The country united behind a winning team and their success overflows into our work place and economy.

WE feel Springbok Rugby belongs to us the South African public and as such show a vote of no confidence in the current management of SA Rugby namely the South African Rugby Football Unions Presidential Council. We herewith call for the immediate resignation of Messrs, Stofile, Hoskins, Basson and Prinsloo and all there incompetent colleagues

This is a democratic country and this is how we the public feel. We have had enough of SARFU’s bungling efforts and political meddling in our sport the past 10 years. We want SA Rugby run by people who have played rugby at a high level and have SA Rugby’s best interests at heart, not their own political agendas.

Let’s get this petition started!

Write your name and e mail address below if you would like to see these people go and forward to your mailing list!!

Every 100th person should send the mail to sarfu@mweb.co.za ( E Mail Address on their Web site)

No you wont get R10,000.00 in your account this week if you forward to all your friends, and maybe SARFU wont read it, but at least we’re doing something about how we feel and not just complaining and sitting on our asses!

Like I said, the sentiment is nice. But let me get my two cents in:

Firstly email petitions are a load of rubbish. They never work, they might, maybe raise awareness for a fraction of a second and then they enter the realm of spam mails that we receive years after they were first sent. Enough said.

Secondly, Jake White is a Hero to our nation. He is exactly what we all should be striving for. Not a world cup, but an attitude. Everything Jake did was done in spite of those above him not because of them. Jake to the reigns, took the lead and made a difference to the people immediately around him, his players. Then when his players felt the change they lived the change, then when they lived the changed they won the World Cup. Then when they won the world cup more people were exposed to it and so on and so on.

Let the man go if he wants to go. I think he should go, in fact, let him go to the team with the highest bid. He deserved it. We deserved him as a nation, we got him and he won us the cup, simple. Now let him go. He is allowed to, it is time for him to go and it is time for the bosses to get out of their systems whatever it is that they need to get out of their systems. Jake does not need to be apart of it.

Furthermore, no coach has ever won the cup twice. I think Jake needs to leave SA on a high, get out while he is still a hero and do whatever he pleases thereafter. He deserves the best.

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This is a bit delayed, sorry, I’ve been a bit lazy!

Myself, Carly, Justin and Jason tried our hardest to welcome the Boks in to Rosebank on Friday. What we got was soaking wet and some great footage and patriotic displays! Unfortunately we didn’t see the rugby players as we were too wet and mistimed the entire event!

Here are two videos from the event:

And here is one from Carly Wienberg at The Times:

Brought to you by: The Times Multimedia

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