David Krohn

The slings and arrows of outrageous South African sports fortune!

What a year for South African sport! We avid fans have been taken on a rollercoaster of supreme highs peppered with devastating lows. Despite the lack of success in major tournaments, few can deny that we have experienced moments approaching the elation of our world cup victory of last year. Chief amongst these highs was undoubtedly our stupendous win over the All Blacks in Dunedin where Ricky Januarie wrote his name in South African rugby lore for all time. No matter that I spent the first 75 minutes begging for him to be replaced, he proved himself the man for a moment of brilliance and his stature has grown emmensly since then.

A close second has to be our first test series win in England for 43 years. Our years of dissapointment in the isles, and Devon Malcolm’s 9 wickets on the final day of the Oval test a few years back, were smashed into oblivion… along with Micheal Vaughn’s career! Greame Smith was sublime and it is with a touch of irony that his leadership bought our favourite expat KP into the english hotseat.

Another lasting image of 2008 has to be Bakkies Botha’s heroic defence denying Delon Armitage in possibly our proudest moment at Twickenham. Our crushing 42-6 victory surely rivals the 36-0 victory over the poms in the classic pool match of last year’s world cup and provided me and my fellow London Saffers much joy at the expense of our hosts. Trevor Immelman and Charl Schwartzel’s achievements on the golf course deserve the highest praise as they added greatly to our nations honours in 2008.

We must, however, temper our joy with some massive dissapointments. Our dismal showing at the olympics is a cause of great concern and, espiecially when contrasted with the reasons for Great Britain’s success, points towards the ineptitude of our athletics administrators. Returning to the rugby front, it must be said that our dissapointing showings in the Super 14 and the trinations were bitter pills to swallow. Particularly galling was our first home loss to Australia this millenium. I hate losing to the Aussies in any situation but at home with our tournament survival on the line was almost too much to bear! As good as our victory was the following week, it does little to soothe  the pain of a home defeat mainly due to the dead nature of the rubber.

2008 also saw the retirement of two of SA sport’s greatest servants. Percy Montgomery and Shaun Pollock will be sorely missed and it is indeed fortunate that we have so much young talent coming through the ranks. Ruan pienaar and Ryan Kankowski look particularly bright prospects but it was a great disappointment to see the meltdown of Francois Steyn’s promising career. It remains to be seen whether Pieter de Villiers has the nous and nature to bring the best out of these talents and further stem the exodus of talent to the lucrative northern climes. The loss of BJ Botha and, in my opinion, the gifted Robbie Diack were particularly worrying as they were the optimy of classic South African strengths.

On a personal note, it was pleasing to see my friends Farhann Berhardien and Alistair Gray establish themselves at provincial level. I was also glad to see my great school basketball rival Ross Skeate become a regular feature of both the stormers and western province. I just hope he won’t too be lost to a northern team which is why I was less happy to see Jonathan Trott challenge for an England spot as I have followed his career since I was a few years behind him at Rondebosch and was dissapointed to lose his talent to the enemy.

More recently, the incredible chase and victory over Australia in Perth will live in memory for a long time. The second test has held some incredible moments and JP Duminy is surely a star of the future. I look forward to his partnership with AB de Villiers and quite pleased with the selection dillemma posed by his rise. I have to state that I am quite surprised that he has been blooded so late and in the dreaded WACA cauldron to boot but his confidence must surely be brimming over after meeting that prodigious challenge with such class. His record partnership with Steyn has to be another highlight of the year and only one thing remains… Come on boys… give us a series win to cap off a brilliant year for SA sport!