Some weekends hand you one story. This one handed South African fans two moods at once. On Saturday lunchtime the Springboks made a Test match look like an open training session. By Sunday night, two cup quarter-finals had been decided with the clock almost out, and Sundowns had been beaten in a final at their own ground, in the rain. If you spent the weekend switching channels, you felt all of it.
This is our weekend sport South Africa recap. Not the scores, which our reports already carry, but what they told us, and what they set up for an international break that opens with a very big Friday.
The big weekend theme: a weekend sport South Africa recap told in margins
Margins. That was the thread. In Turin there was no margin to speak of: the Boks led 45-0 at the break and won 66-7 (our Italy v Springboks report). Everywhere else, the gaps were tiny.
Pirates got past Sekhukhune United by a single goal on Saturday (how Pirates edged it). On Sunday, Chiefs fell behind to Siwelele, missed a penalty and still won 2-1 through a substitute in the closing minutes (the night in Polokwane). In the Winelands, AmaZulu were moments from extra time when Sinoxolo Kwayiba scored from the spot in the seventh minute of added time (Stellenbosch’s late winner).
Add Sundowns’ 1-0 against Golden Arrows last Tuesday, and the PSL’s own results page tells the story: four quarter-finals, four one-goal wins.
The lesson for anyone already predicting the semi-finals is that form meant little. AmaZulu arrived third in the league on six straight wins and went out. Siwelele, 14th, led Chiefs for most of the first half. Cup football in Mzansi still refuses to read the script, and that is exactly why we love it.
What we took from it
1. Best performance: the Boks’ bench and boot in Turin
It is easy to wave away 66-7 against an Italy side missing 16 players, and our Fan Seat argued on Sunday that the afternoon told us very little. Look past the total, though, and two things will travel to Paris.
The replacements came on early in the second half and scored twice, through Wilco Louw and Paul de Villiers. And Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu kicked every goal he attempted in a 26-point afternoon. Neither of those is a soft-opposition statistic. A bench that adds points and a flyhalf who converts everything are precisely what close Tests in France tend to be decided by.
The group gets stronger, too. The record cap-holder is back: Eben Etzebeth, fit again after the injury that kept him out of the original touring party, has been called up, RugbyPass reports, and was due in France on Monday.
2. Biggest concern: Sundowns, at home, in a final
This one stings, and it should. Sundowns had Loftus, their own supporters and both Ronwen Williams and Teboho Mokoena back in the side, and they still lost a one-off final 3-1 to USM Alger (the Super Cup report). After the Champions League exit against Wiliete, it is a second continental setback of the season, and the club’s lone Super Cup is still the one from 2017.
Miguel Cardoso can point to bad luck. Nuno Santos was hurt in the warm-up and Brayan Leon was carried off early. Injuries explain some of it. They do not explain being behind inside four minutes of a one-off final. The international break gives Cardoso time to think. Waiting on the other side of it, whenever the PSL fixes the date, is a cup semi-final against Chiefs, a club that would love nothing more than to catch Sundowns while they are wounded.
3. Chiefs found something on the bench
With the MTN8 and the Confederation Cup already gone, and a derby defeat still fresh, Sunday in Polokwane could have turned ugly for Kaizer Chiefs. It did not. Fernando Da Cruz turned to Asanele Velebayi from the bench for the last stretch, and the substitute repaid him with the winner, his first goal in a Chiefs shirt.
It was not pretty. A goal given away at a set piece and a missed spot-kick are not the habits of a side about to lift a trophy. But Amakhosi are now two wins from silverware, which looked unlikely when they fell behind on Sunday. Our view: the semi-final will tell us whether Sunday was resilience or relief.
4. What you may have missed: a teenager, and possession that went nowhere
Two cup details worth keeping. Pirates’ winner on Saturday came from Mpho Padime, 19 and making his first start, while Oswin Appollis began on the bench again. Abdeslam Ouaddou was frank afterwards that his side should have won by far more.
In Stellenbosch, meanwhile, AmaZulu had 60% of the ball by Goal’s count and did not manage a single shot on target all night. Usuthu’s season has been built on control and patience. Sunday showed the limit of that. In a knockout tie, a side that never tests the goalkeeper is waiting for the other team to blink. In the 97th minute, it was AmaZulu who did.
What it means next
The last four, then: Mamelodi Sundowns against Kaizer Chiefs, and Stellenbosch against Orlando Pirates. The draw was made at Peter Mokaba Stadium straight after Sunday’s late tie. When we checked the PSL’s cup page at 06:44 on Monday, it had not yet listed dates, venues or which side plays at home, so we will not guess.
First comes the international break. Bafana Bafana’s double-header with Kenya starts at Orlando Stadium on Friday 13 November, with an 18:00 kick-off according to SAFA, and finishes in Nairobi four days later. The Springboks meet France at the Stade de France later that same Friday, at 22:10 SAST, then Ireland in Dublin on 21 November. The All Blacks won 43-21 at Murrayfield on Saturday, so the southern group race stays level on 20 points. The Proteas begin their Test series against Bangladesh at the Wanderers on Sunday 15 November. And Pirates, Business Day reports, open their Champions League group campaign against Simba SC in Zanzibar on 28 November.
So that was the weekend: one afternoon of excess in Turin, and a string of nights decided by a kick, a bounce or a substitute’s first goal. The week ahead asks a harder question, because neither Bafana nor the Boks will face a team missing 16 players on Friday. Which win would you take first: Johannesburg at six, or Paris after ten?