Wales make history with Boks victory
WALES completed a first clean sweep of autumn Tests after toppling South Africa 20-11 at the Principality Stadium.
First-half tries by prop Tomas Francis and full-back Liam Williams put Wales in the lead but the Boks hit back with centre Jesse Kriel’s touchdown, plus a penalty apiece from Handre Pollard and Elton Jantjies.
Wales sealed the win with fly-half Gareth Anscombe kicking two conversions and his replacement Dan Biggar landing 68th and 72nd-minute penalties.
England swept aside Australia 37-18 to claim a sixth successive victory over the Wallabies.
Tries from Jonny May, Elliot Daly and Joe Cokanasiga and Owen Farrell touching down in the closing stages.
Andrew Conway’s hat-trick sealed Ireland’s second straight autumn series clean sweep with a 57-14 win over the USA in Dublin.
Jack Conan, Tadhg Beirne, Stuart McCloskey, Quinn Roux and John Ryan all crossed too.
Iain Henderson was sin-binned in the first-half as the USA claimed a penalty try, while Worcester hooker Joe Taufete’e also crossed for a try. Fly-half Will Magie converted twice.
Joey Carbery added a penalty to his six conversions to complete Ireland’s tally.
New Zealand ran in 10 tries as they hammered Italy 66-3 at the Stadio Olimpico.
Jordie Barrett bagged four tries while Damian McKenzie scored a hat-trick, with TJ Perenara, Ngani Laumape and Beauden Barrett also touching down.
Beauden Barrett also booted five conversions and Richie Mo’unga three, with Italy’s only points coming from Tommy Allan’s first-half penalty. ANNA Macfadyen booked her spot to next month’s European Cross Country Championships in Tillburg by coming fifth at the British Trials in Liverpool. The teen from Forres secured an automatic berth in the Under-20 event for the trip to Denmark on December 9. Charlotte Arter and Ross Millington won the senior races. KIRSTY Gilmour has reached the final of the Scottish Open after beating top seed Cai Yanyan. The home favourite and defending champion won 19-21, 21-18, 21-11 to set up a clash with Denmark’s second-seed Line Hojmark Kjaersfeldt.
The men’s final will be between Sun Feixiang and Liu Haichao. CALEDONIA Pride exited the WBBL Cup in the quarter-finals with a 95-74 loss to Sheffield Hatters. SCOTLAND’S Team Mouat beat defending champions Sweden 9-5 in the gold medal game at their first European Championships in Estonia and in doing so denied Team Edin’s rink the opportunity to claim their fifth consecutive title in the event.
It was a reversal of the result at last year’s European Championships final when Edin’s rink defeated Scotland, then represented by Team Smith. However, on this occasion, it was Scotland that prevailed, after securing a steal of three at the last when Edin’s last stone attempt to tie the match stayed wide of the target.
Skip Bruce Mouat said: “It’s pretty insane. Obviously we wanted to come here and perform at our best and we said that we wanted to win a medal. Obviously we knew WESTERN Wildcats failed in their attempt to overhaul Grange at the top of the First Division after they were held to a 1-1 draw by Clydesdale at Auchenhowie.
Grove Menzieshill have emerged as the nearest challengers to Grange with a 21-0 rout of bottom side Gordonians. The Taysiders are now only two points behind the champions and could go top if they can see off Wildcats at Auchenhowie today. BRISTOL De Mai blitzed a small but stellar field as he reigned supreme in the Betfair Chase at Haydock for the second successive year.
He may not have come home 57 lengths clear as he did in 2017, but he showed he is a tip-top performer on his day by putting last season’s first two in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in their place. The 13-2 shot jumped superbly for Daryl Jacob and he kept pulling out more to hold the challenge of Colin Tizzard’s Native River in game fashion with Thistlecrack in third. NICOLAS Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert combined to win a thrilling doubles in Lille and take their Davis Cup final with Croatia into a third day. Trailing 2-0 at the start of the day, the French pair had to win to keep the tie alive and they managed that with a 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3) victory over Mate Pavic and Ivan Dodig. Yannick Noah’s men still must win both the reverse singles today to claim the title.