Being dropped from the SA side for two crucial matches in the recent World Cup in the West Indies – against England and Australia – still rankles with fast bowler Makhaya Ntini.

Although Australian and New Zealand rugby authorities are outraged about the Springbok ‘second team’ – the top 20 players will be left at home, ostensibly to rest them ahead of the World Cup in September – being sent to play the Wallabies and the All Blacks in the Tri-Nations, next month, Bok coach Jake White remains unrepentant.

AJ Venter has withdrawn from the Springbok Tri-Nations rugby tour to Australia and New Zealand and quit international rugby, says a report in The Witness.

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality has decided to downgrade the city's 2010 World Cup stadium as the Eastern Cape provincial government has not paid the R212m it previously committed to the project.

In an astonishing attack on Australian rugby, in which he effectively labels both George Gregan and coach John Connolly cheats, Michael Katzenellenbogen, the former SA test and Super Rugby referee, says he ‘cannot stand certain Australian rugby players and how they play the game’.

The Springbok emblem seems set to be cast onto the scrap heap of history as the ANC sets about finding a uniform South African sports symbol, writes E-Brief News.

PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns sponsors MTN will be playing celebrated Spanish giants Barcelona at Loftus next Wednesday.

Shosholoza will be back for the next America's Cup, whether it is in Europe or New Zealand, the head of the SA syndicate said on Saturday.

Kenya will host the third and final Afro-Asia Cup series in June 2008, local cricket officials said on Tuesday.

A London-based gambler has staked £150 000 on SA to win the World Cup, defying the bookmakers who make the All Blacks odds-on favourites to triumph in France.

Ernie Els has been using the Golf Channel archives for some mental therapy as he battles to get back on top of his game in time for the US Open starting on Thursday.

Springbok coach Jake White is looking forward to seeing how his charges match up when they face Australia's strongest team of the 2007 season in a Vodacom Tri-Nations test at Newlands on Saturday.

Ernie Els and Retief Goosen may have to take a back seat. In-form Rory Sabbatini is the man to tame super-quick greens at Oakmont.

Nobody is denying that radical changes are set to sweep through SA rugby following the World Cup in France later this year.

It would be considered a phenomenon of sorts if Bafana Bafana completed their build-up for an important game without a single casualty or mishap – and there was no exception to the rule on Tuesday when Vuyo Mere limped off the training pitch at the Germiston Stadium prior to Sunday's African Cup of Nations qualifier against Congo in Pointe Noire.

In another twist to the cricketing tango between Graham Ford and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the former South African coach has rejected their offer to be their new national coach.

The Comrades Marathon is pegged as ‘the ultimate human race’, and a British athlete born with no legs plans to bear testimony to that next Sunday when he becomes the first double amputee to start the race.

A plan to ‘Africanise’ Springbok rugby is on the drawing board – and Luke Watson, who it is said will captain the Springboks next year, and Peter de Villiers, who will become the country's first black national rugby coach, are charged with making it work.

Besides the interest generated by the Springbok debut of Luke Watson, Saturday’s 35-8 victory over fringe rugby nation Samoa served to illustrate the worrying gulf between the Springbok team proper and what amounted to a second team, writes George Parker.

Telkom experienced a major cable fault on Monday that disrupted all traffic flow to our Cape Town-based server. As a result we were unable to deliver this sports issue as usual yesterday.

The Emerging Springboks' tilt at the IRB Nations Cup title continued apace following a solid 24-7 victory over Georgia at the Arcul de Triumf stadium in Bucharest on Sunday.

Mahendra Dhoni and Mahela Jayawardene hammered centuries in a record stand to set up Asia's 13-run win over Africa in the third and final match of the Afro-Asia one-day series here on Sunday.

Pretoria University drew 1-1 with Winners Park in an entertaining Mvela Platinum Play-off game at the Seshego Stadium in Polokwane on Sunday.

Bok coach Jake White faces an inquiry by the SA Rugby Union after a verbal altercation with a sports writer at a Johannesburg nightspot last week.

Former Springbok tighthead prop Cobus Visagie will help coach the Western Province forwards before their first Currie Cup rugby match of the season, against the Lions on June 23.