Molangoane returns
Thriving Joseph prepared to play wherever coach needs him
THE Durban sailing community is reeling with excitement following the generous and unprecedented offer by the trophy holders Royal Cape Yacht Club (RCYC) for Durban’s Point Yacht Club (PYC) to host next year’s 65th Lipton Challenge Cup in its stead.
This comes about as a result of the PYC yacht Choose Life Co-ordination being belatedly declared the winners of the coveted trophy in 2013 following the disqualification of the original winners from the False Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) whose yacht was found to have been illegally modified.
The Lipton Challenge Cup is a one-design regatta sailed annually on identical L26 yachts offshore and all SA yacht clubs – including those from as far north as Walvis Bay and Namibia and from Mozambique – are invited to send one team each to the week-long regatta.
At the culmination of the event the winning team also has the privilege to choose to either host the following year’s Lipton Challenge Cup on their home waters or else to nominate the next hosting yacht club if their own club is not situated on the coast.
The helmsman for the PYC’s Lipton 2013 entry, Richard Weddell, has had a somewhat dramatic Lipton campaign, finishing a respectable fourth in his first attempt at Simonstown in 2012, and then sailing magnificently offshore of Durban in 2013 to initially finish tied on points with False Bay YC with the Cape club declared the winners and PYC the runners-up on a count back.
Ricky Robinson was at the helm of the RNYC’s Orion B2G2 which won the 2012 Lipton Cup at False Bay which saw the race venue return to Durban for the controversial 2013 contest.
In a recent letter to Point Yacht Club Commodore, Greg de Beyer, Royal Cape Yacht Club Commodore Vitor Medina graciously offered the PYC the opportunity to host the July/ August 2018 event offshore of Durban. The letter states: “The Royal Cape Yacht Club, in recognition of this unfairness of your loss to a non-conforming boat in 2013, is prepared to forfeit our right to defend the Lipton Challenge Cup in Table Bay next year and to offer the 2018 event to your Club to host offshore Durban during the week immediately following on your own MSC Week running from June 30 until July 6.”
In graciously accepting the Cape club’s offer De Beyer said: “This offer has been discussed by our General Committee and Sailing Committees and the offer has been eagerly and unanimously accepted.
“The Point Yacht Club is firmly committed to promoting our sport along with the other sailing clubs and organisations throughout South Africa and while we have never doubted the goodwill and common goal of the Royal Cape Yacht Club, we welcome this gesture and will do our utmost to ensure that next year’s Lipton Challenge Cup will be a success and that it will be undertaken in the spirit in which the gift was given to our sport.”
The Lipton Challenge Cup is regarded as South Africa’s most prestigious sailing competition and the trophy’s intrinsic value is currently estimated at R2-million.
As a result of the acceptance of the RCYC’s offer for the PYC to host next year’s event there has been a flurry of activity at the Durban-based club and already the Rear Commodore of Keelers is hard at work scheduling trials to select the best team to challenge for the Royal Cape Yacht Club’s title.
For more info visit www. pyc.co.za or like the Facebook page.
THERE is obviously some confusion regarding the real reason behind Joseph Molangoane’s omission from the Kaizer Chiefs match-day squad earlier in the season following the player’s denial this week that he’d been ill or had any trouble off the pitch.
Amakhosi coach Steve Komphela had said more than once that suggestions that Molangoane had disciplinary issues were “hogwash”.
Only the club knows the truth, but for now, the pintsized midfielder is thriving in somewhat unfamiliar territory.
“I have played at rightback before. This is where I launched my career when I was at Platinum Stars under the same coach (Komphela). Even at Jazzy Queen’s academy I was playing the same position,” Molangoane said this week.
To break back into the team, the 29-year-old, who had missed the first seven Premier Soccer League games this season, was told he would have to play as a right wing-back. He would have to support in attack and cover some distance to also help in defence.
“The coach sat me down and asked me if I would be willing to play this position,” said Molangoane, who has twice been voted Man of the Match in the five matches he has played in this “new” role.
He is undoubtedly one of the players to watch when Chiefs tackle Bidvest Wits in the semi-finals of the Telkom Knockout this afternoon at the Bidvest Stadium.
“We obviously had a lot of injuries (nine key players sidelined) and the coach called me into his office to explain what would be required (of me) to play in that position,” Molangoane explained.
“I told him I don’t have a problem playing there, all I needed were instructions of what I have to do on the day of the game. We know games are not the same.
“I think I have done what he wanted me to do in those matches.
“I can’t speak for the coach, but I think I have done well and I can still improve in that position. I can do much better and I am prepared to play there for the rest of the season if that is what he wants.”
Molangoane was one of the most enterprising players for Chiefs last season after he arrived as a free agent from Chippa United in December last year.
Amakhosi fans were surprised to see the attacking midfielder left on the bench or in the stands at the start of this current campaign.
“I am not trying to prove anything to anyone now that I am playing again. I am at work, and doing a job.
“Being on the field is my happy place,” the player said, adding that he’d been on the sidelines purely because of Komphela’s selection choices, not illness or discipline.
“I have been in football for quite some years. It happens that you are not going to be selected for certain games because the coach has his plan and knows what he wants.
“I was ready, always there and waiting for the opportunity. And when it came I took it.