High Emotion Time to take heart from Senzo
| Victory over Sudan in Afcon qualifier would be a fitting tribute to fallen hero Meyiwa
AN EMOTIONAL week will require cool heads from Bafana Bafana players as they prepare to take on Sudan in their penultimate African Nations Cup qualifier in Durban on Saturday.
Coach Shakes Mashaba and his players are determined to book their place in the competition with a game to spare to honour their late captain Senzo Meyiwa.
Bafana have a good chance of securing qualification against a Sudan team they beat convincingly in September, but they cannot allow themselves to be paralysed by hysteria.
If they play for Meyiwa they risk being sidetracked from their primary goal of qualifying. The last thing they need is to go into their final game away to Nigeria having to win at all costs.
Here are five occasions when the emotion of the moment became too much. Brazil (2014) It was dubbed Neymar’s World Cup, but it went horribly wrong when the poster boy of Brazilian football injured his back in the quarterfinals. Brazil were devastated and vowed to win the title for their star.
When they walked out for their semifinal clash, stand-in captain David Luiz held Neymar’s jersey before the national anthem.
Brazil were hammered 7-1 by a merciless German team because their focus was in the wrong place. The Springboks The Boks seem to have a 100cap curse. They have lost four of
The last thing they need is having to win at all costs in the final game away to Nigeria
the five games in which a Bok reaches a hundred games. The Boks lost to the All Blacks in Percy Montgomery’s 100th game and to the All Blacks again on John Smit’s big day.
Victor Matfield broke the trend with a win against Australia at Loftus Versfeld, but the Boks reverted to type on the days of Bryan Habana and Jean de Villiers’s centuries this year, losing to the Wallabies and the All Blacks respectively. Thomas Madigage (2012) Madigage was a loyal servant to the game. After years at Supersport United he was appointed Bafana Bafana assistant coach, but three months later he was killed in a car accident. Bafana were beaten 10 by Zambia in a Nelson Mandela Challenge match played in his honour at FNB Stadium on November 14 — the day Madigage would have turned 42.
The game was a preparation for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations, a competition South Africa were determined to win to honour Madigage. However, Gordon Igesund’s men were knocked out in the quarterfinals by Mali.
When Ayrton Senna moved to Williams it was to drive a world championship-winning car.
The Williams Renault, driven by Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost, had won the 1992 and 1993 titles. Senna, the best driver on the grid at the time, was sure that if Prost could win a championship at a canter so could he.
But then came that fateful day at Imola when Senna died after his car hit a wall on the opening lap. Williams would have liked to win the title for Senna, but they had rookie Damon Hill. Another relative rookie, Michael Schumacher, won his first title with Benetton. The Sharks (1999) Retiring players also spell bad luck, as the Sharks found out in 1999 when they were eager to honour three Sharks and Springbok greats: Gary Teichmann, Henry Honiball and Andre Joubert. No 8 Teichmann had led the Boks to a world record-equalling 17 straight wins from 1997 to 1998; Honiball redefined the flyhalf role with ferocious tackling; and Joubert was the Rolls-Royce of fullbacks. But the Golden Lions spoiled the party, winning 32-9.
TAKE THAT!: Darren Keet expresses his frustration and disappointment after a difficult moment during a match GOALKEEPERS live in the world of the unexpected.
That is why the whimsy of coach Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba doesn’t faze either Darren Keet or Brilliant Khuzwayo, who are in line to succeed the late Senzo Meyiwa in the Bafana Bafana goal.
Mashaba is keeping his cards close to his chest and will not say who is likely to assume the No 1 jersey between the two.
Keet and Khuzwayo are cool with that, mainly because they are used to it.
Both have worked with Mashaba in the junior ranks and know that the Bafana Bafana No 1 spot is up for grabs against Sudan in Durban and the trip to Nigeria to face the Super Eagles four days later.
“It is nice to have a feeling of wonder because it gives us play- TEBOHO MOLOI: Assistant coach at Orlando Pirates NEW Zealand started the European leg of their November tour with a hard-fought 24-21 win over England at Twickenham yesterday.
In a match billed by some as a potential World Cup final between the reigning champions (New Zealand) and the 2015 tournament hosts (England), the All Blacks’ greater rugby nous told as they recorded their fifth straight win over the Red Rose brigade after a 3-0 home series victory in June.
England kicked off buoyed by the memory of their record 3821 win over New Zealand at Twickenham in 2012 and they gave a test debut to Fiji-born wing Semesa Rokoduguni, a serving British Army soldier.
But their task was not helped by the absence of seven injured British and Irish Lions.
It took England just four minutes to open the scoring in dramatic style. The ball was worked wide to left wing Jonny May, who went round New Zealand centre Conrad Smith and then past Israel Dagg for his first international try.
New Zealand hit back with a try in the 14th minute after their first visit to England’s 22.
All Blacks wing Ben Smith beat May in an aerial challenge and the ball was then spun wide, with blindside flanker Jerome Kaino bursting between England captain Chris Robshaw and lock Courtney Lawes. Owen Farrell then kicked two penalties to take England into an 11-5 lead. Aaron Cruden then responded to Farrell’s penalties with two of his own.
Farrell missed a drop-goal but on the stroke of half time, after All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw infringed at a ruck, the flyhalf kicked England into a 14-11 interval lead.
Cruden saw his early secondhalf penalty come back off the post, but New Zealand soon led for the first time in the match.
England replacement lock George Kruis rushed up in defence but was left stranded by Cruden’s cut-out pass.
Prop forward Owen Franks charged forward and New Zealand created an overlap, which meant McCaw had time to gather Dagg’s poor pass before crossing for a try.
Cruden made a mess of the conversion but New Zealand were 16-14 in front.
The All Blacks were a man down in the 57th minute when Dane Coles was shown a yellow card for kicking out at opposing hooker Dylan Hartley. Yet, with rain now lashing down in the final quarter, New Zealand extended their lead.
Replacement flyhalf Beauden Barrett missed his first closerange penalty but made no mistake with his second to make it 19-14 to the All Blacks.
And then wave after wave of New Zealand attacks were rewarded with a first test try for replacement prop Charlie Faumuina nine minutes from time. England scored a converted penalty try in the final minute but it was all too late for the home side.
Australia, meanwhile, edged Wales 33-28 to extend Wales’s losing streak to southern hemisphere teams to 21 at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.— AFP