Testing times for Lions, says Steyn as Van Wyk goes down again
A HUMBLE and blessed head coach of Banyana Banyana, Desiree Ellis, had nothing but enormous gratitude upon learning that the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) is going to award her with an honorary doctorate in sports management.
The ceremony is set to take place today at CPUT’s Bellville campus.
Ellis was in awe when the news broke of one of the greatest days of her football career.
“I am really excited, and the fact that it’s in my home city makes it more special as my family can attend this special occasion and celebrate with me,” Ellis said. “A big thank (you) to CPUT for honouring me. Please continue to create opportunities for other women and celebrate them and their achievements. Continue to support and raise the profile of women.”
Born in Salt River, Cape Town, the 61-yearold began her journey in football when she was still a schoolgirl. With football being a male-dominated sport, there was little or no interest from other girls, leading her to play alongside boys.
Such was her love for the sport that her parents had to buy countless pairs of shoes. Her father threatened that she would have to walk barefoot if she continued destroying her shoes, but her career path was one which needed her to fill big shoes.
As big as those shoes were to fill, they were pointed in the right direction. Ellis has played a huge role in the lives of many girls who have taken up football or coaching as careers.
The head of CPUT’s sports management department, Professor Simeon Davies, had this to say about Ellis: “She epitomises women in sports participation, leadership and business, and she is a positive role model for all future CPUT graduates, and especially sports management graduates.
“Through hard work, persistence and her exceptional high standards Desiree Ellis has become a hero to many South Africans and, because of her challenged upbringing, she especially relates to and inspires so many women in our disadvantaged communities.”
Ellis has won four successive Cosafa Cup titles between 2017 and 2020, to go with her four Confederation of African Football (CAF) Women’s Coach of the Year awards.
But the highlight of her career was South Africa’s first Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in 2022 and her two-time qualification with Banyana Banyana for the Fifa Women’s World Cup in 2019 and 2023.
The latest edition ended with a last-16 finish, the highest South Africa has reached in any Fifa World Cup.
FOR a bachelor, Rulani Mokwena sure knows a lot about the art of wooing.
Should he decide to go the marriage route, the Mamelodi Sundowns coach is unlikely to struggle finding a mate.
And it will not be his coaching success or good looks that will do the trick, though those are sure to come in handy too.
As he tries to emulate his predecessor Pitso Mosimane and bring the CAF Champions League title home to Chloorkop, the young coach likened the pursuit of continental glory to courting a potential marriage partner.
It takes time, patience, perseverance and a lot of dates – he has figured it out.
Mokwena will lead Sundowns against Esperance in second leg of the semi-final of the continent’s premier club knockout competition tomorrow night needing to win at least 1-0 to stand a chance of reaching the final.
That result will force the match into a penalty shoot-out, with the aggregate score at 1-1, after Esperance won the first leg 1-0.
A 2-0 scoreline will see the South African champions winning 2-1 on aggregate.
Mokwena had just led a second-string
TS Galaxy may well be on their way to securing a sought-after finish in the DStv Premiership top eight at the end of the season, but it is their coach Sead Ramovic who has grabbed all the headlines.
The Rockets are sixth in the standings, having played 22 games of the 2023/2024 campaign, and have been one of the most entertaining teams to watch throughout the season.
In a period where there have been dramatic rivalries between coaches and consistent blasting of the officiating, Ramovic has been at the centre of it all.
It has been just three months
SPRINGBOK legend Morné Steyn knows a thing or two about the pressures associated with Test-match rugby.
You will recall that in 2009 at Loftus, with the British & Irish Lions series on a knife edge in the second Test, it was the flyhalf who calmly stepped up to slot over the winning kick, ensuring a series victory 29 years in the making.
Capped on 68 occasions for the Boks, Steyn – who now helps coach the Lions as a kicking consultant – believes the Joburgers will require such a Testmatch mentality when they face an internationally experienced Munster on Saturday at Ellis Park (5pm kick-off) in what has become a season-defining match for both teams.
“Especially now, getting to the end of the season and the play-offs, it is going to be important to play Test-* Sundowns team to a 2-1 win over Sekhukhune United at Loftus since his much-publicised spat with Mamelodi Sundowns head honcho Rulani Mokwena, and a few weeks after that he called out the media for failing to acknowledge his side’s good set of results at the time.
In his latest spate of controversial quotes, he labelled the Premier Soccer League’s refereeing standards a “disgrace”, igniting one of the most talked about points of the weekend.
His sudden penchant for attention rests on a very thin line between an implosion that might disturb the club’s progress and providing his group with much-needed relief ahead of the tricky final stanza of the season.
The best managers in the world have adopted the most important match rugby,” Steyn said yesterday after Lions training.
“We must get more in the other team’s half. We are going to play some quality teams, and we have to be on point now.”
Steyn started consulting with the Lions at the beginning of the season, and has attempted to help the entire team – not only halfbacks Sanele Nohamba, Morné van den Berg, Nico Steyn, Jordan Hendrikse, Gianni Lombard and Kade Wolhuter – consider a more holistic approach when kicking.
“My main focus is to get everyone involved – not just the nines, 10s and 15s,” he explained.
“If you look at the New Zealand and Irish teams, the outside backs are kicking a lot more. That is a big work-on for us in South Africa – the centres and the wingers must be able to kick.
“I see a massive improvement in
Versfeld on Tuesday night – with goals from Tashreeq Matthews and Thapelo component of modern-day coaches, which is using the power of the media to their advantage.
The likes of Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp are frequently the most-discussed figures before and after football games for their usually contentious views.
While they may believe a huge majority of their utterances, most of it is assumed to be a defence mechanism for their players and changerooms.
All three of these Champions League winners have never hidden that they would always protect their players from any distractions or unwarranted criticism – a trait Ramovic may be adopting.
In essence, Ramovic may be attracting guys like Marius Louw, who is working every day to get in a few strikes. I think you can see the difference.
“There is a good understanding within the team now and what we want to do,” he added.
“Sanele and Krappie (Van den Berg) are doing very well there with Jordan when he is playing there. There is a good balance between running and kicking, and it is getting better with every game.”
Earlier this year, several Lions were called up to the first Springbok alignment camp, including Nohamba, Van den Berg and Quan Horn, and Steyn believes that they must be given an opportunity in the coming months to run out for the Boks.
There is certainly an opportunity for Bok coach Rassie Erasmus to do so, with a Test against Wales falling out of the Test window on June 22, and then a one-off encounter against Portugal
Morena – to leave the Brazilians needing just two more victories to retain their DStv Premiership title.
Addressing the post-match media conference, Mokwena was at pains to make people understand that winning the Champions League was a tough undertaking.
“I just get the feeling that people think, ‘Ah, they’ll just win the Champions League’. It’s a very difficult competition,” he said, explaining for the umpteenth time this season that teams have got to have a relationship with the competition to eventually come right.
‘’When Jose Mourinho spoke of heritage, watch the European Champions League. You don’t have to go far – Real Madrid versus Man City (who met in the quarter-finals over the past two weeks).
Man City were by far the best team over both legs by far but they’ve got no heritage (and were knocked out),” he said of the English team that only recently joined Europe’s top clubs after they were bought by the oil-rich Sheikh Mansour. “Real Madrid have this (connection) with the competition and then the football gods say, ‘Oh, we know this guy, this one always buys us flowers and chocolates.
“And in difficult moments when the relationship is not so strong this all of the attention to him as a means to remove it from his players as they continue their top-eight quest.
It is no secret that the ambitions of later in July.
Said Steyn: “(Erasmus) knows the core of his team, what his plans are and the main guys … They (the Lions) have been playing some good rugby.
“We struggled at a time at flyhalf with all the guys that were injured – Gianni and Kade were still injured, and Jordan was in and out – and we needed a No 10. Sanele slotted in at No 10, and he has done very well.
“There is an opportunity for them now,” he reiterated.
“They are in the group, so they can now prove that they must be there.”
Meanwhile, it was revealed yesterday that Henco van Wyk is set to miss the rest of the season due to injury.
The 22-year-old hurt his knee coming off the bench against Leinster this past week, which required surgery.
He had just returned to match fitness at the time. one will never stray from us, he’s close’. And so what does it do? It favours that.”
He wants Sundowns to be like Madrid in terms of their relationship with the CAF Champions League.
“That’s the position we have to get to, where we are flirting with the Champions League so much that it decides to leave the north African teams and says, ‘Ah, I’ve found a new husband’.”
He knows exactly how to do that. “We have to take it on dates all the time. Semi-final, semi-final, final, semi-final, final, we keep taking it out on dates. That’s what we have to do.
“Eventually it will say ‘yes, I do. We can now go to the altar’. Eventually, you are the husband.”
No doubt Mokwena would love for it to say ‘I do’ this campaign.
First, though, he must get Sundowns to the final, and that will require Masandawana to be much sharper and more incisive up front tomorrow night at Loftus Versfeld (8pm kickoff) than they were last weekend in Tunisia.
More importantly, they have to be impenetrable defensively so as to not allow Esperance to score.
Do that, and wooing days of Mokwena’s CAF Champions League ‘bachelorhood’ would be nearly over.
Galaxy will always include good runs in cup competitions, and one of those tournaments is the MTN8 next season.
Galaxy, in sixth, have two games in hand over second-placed Stellenbosch FC, with a nine-point gap to make up for if they are to qualify for the CAF competitions for the second time in their history.
The last time The Rockets ventured onto the continent was in 2019, when they won the Nedbank Cup by beating Kaizer Chiefs, a stage Ramovic is desperate to get his side back to.
Next on their agenda is the visit of relegation-threatened Moroka Swallows, who will arrive ready for action at the Mbombela Stadium tomorrow night (7.30pm kick-off).
Having recently suffered back-toback losses against Stellenbosch (2-1) and Chippa United (2-0), Ramovic will be looking for a proper response from his side.
It is expected that he will be out for over four months, which will result in him probably missing out on Springbok selection this year.