Episode 38 - French Open '26, Bafana World cup update, Lost Rugby talent, Great losing performances, Fast Fun Five Facts

Episode 38 - French Open '26, Bafana World cup update, Lost Rugby talent, Great losing performances, Fast Fun Five Facts

TOPIC 1 — ROLAND GARROS UPDATE New champions guaranteed in both draws. Sinner gone — heat stroke or choke, you decide. Alcaraz never showed up. Djokovic lost to a 19-year-old Brazilian who came back from two sets down. Swiatek gone. Coco gone. Of the top ten men, only Zverev and Felix Auger-Aliassime are still standing. Of the top ten women, only Mirra Andreeva. The youngsters have dismantled the establishment completely. Qinwen Zheng came through qualifying and is in the semi-finals. Maja Chwalinska — unseeded Pole — has been the women's fairy tale. Last check, Sabalenka was losing to Diana Shnaider in the third set. Zverev is 67% favourite to finally win his first Grand Slam — having led by two sets in his last two finals and lost both. The question that has defined his entire career gets answered on Sunday. TOPIC 2 — FIFA WORLD CUP Nine days away and the chaos is magnificent. Drake has booked suites. Bad Bunny will be at Mexico games. Charlize Theron is going to the opener. Meanwhile SAFA couldn't get a visa for the assistant coach OR the head of security. SAFA doing SAFA things. Iran's Sardar Azmoun — the Iranian Messi — posted a photo with the Emir of Dubai, was accused of treason and his World Cup ended before it started. Brazil have lost Estêvão and Rodrygo before kicking a ball. France are hoping Saliba is fit. Opening game tickets are sitting at $2,938 — R47,800 — and not selling as fast as FIFA expected. There are reports of inconsistent bounce on some playing surfaces. Three rule changes: time-wasting gets you a corner kick, no covering your mouth after scoring, and bigger VAR. South Africa are the only African nation with an entirely homegrown squad — 19 local-based players, the third highest at the whole tournament behind Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Group A is winnable. Mexico at the Azteca is the hardest game. Czechia and South Korea are beatable. This is the best chance this generation gets. TOPIC 3 — SA RUGBY TALENT DRAIN The pipeline is going younger and younger. James and Josh Mackenzie — brothers from Kingswood College — both went to Glasgow Warriors before finishing school. James was an SA U18 player. Harry Soboil from Rondebosch is at Edinburgh and representing Scotland U19. Josh Neill, also Rondebosch, is at Leinster and won two Man of the Match awards for Ireland U20 in the Six Nations. Schoolboys. Redirected before they've played a franchise game. The structural problem: 3,000 Grade 12 players competing for 60 to 90 franchise spots. The rest go to Varsity Cup, club rugby or smaller provinces — or overseas. Only Ntokozo Makhaza from the entire Varsity Cup ecosystem made the Bok alignment camp. TOPIC 4 — BEST PERFORMANCE IN A LOSING CAUSE Nicolas Mahut played 11 hours and 5 minutes across three days at Wimbledon 2010, won more points than his opponent across 980 total, won more points in the deciding set — and lost. Federer was masterful in the 2008 final against Nadal and still lost in what is called the greatest match ever played. Mbappé scored a hat-trick in the 2022 World Cup final, dragged France back from 2-0 down, and lost on penalties. Dusautoir made 38 tackles, scored a try and won Man of the Match in the 2011 Rugby World Cup final — France still lost. Ricky Ponting scored 164 in the 438 game and still lost to Herschelle Gibbs and Makhaya Ntini. LeBron scored 51 in a Finals game and lost. TOPIC 5 — FAST FIVE Three questions. No Googling. First: which South African-born player played in the losing team in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final at Ellis Park? Second: which Australian bowler took 12 for 128 in the Sydney Test South Africa won by 5 runs in 1994 — and who took 10 wickets for South Africa in the same match? Third: Cristiano Ronaldo once scored a hat-trick in a Champions League match and still ended up on the losing side — which two of his former clubs were involved, and where was it played?

Episode 37 - CSA: TICKETS! PSG vs Arsenal, Roids, Athletes that never won, Fast Five Fun Facts.

TOPIC 1 — NEWLANDS TICKET DEBACLE CSA sent a "Sold Out" email at 09:00 for tickets that went on sale at 09:30. The Barmy Army got 12%. South African fans got 13%. Resale tickets hit R4,465 before lunch. This is what happens when your national cricket board sells the New Year's Test to overseas tour packages before ordinary fans have finished their coffee — and there's still no Sky Sports broadcast deal to show for it. TOPIC 2 — FOOTBALL SEASON WRAP Orlando Pirates won a treble. Sundowns won the CAF Champions League. Arsenal won the Premier League. All the big leagues wrapped up — and now Arsenal face PSG in the Champions League final in Budapest on 30 May. Arsenal went unbeaten in Europe all season. PSG lost twice and still made it. One has won this before. The other has been waiting 22 years. And one of them is about to be very disappointed. TOPIC 3 — DOPING IN SA RUGBY Asenathi Ntlabakanye gets 18 months — his doctor refused to testify. Aphiwe Dyantyi got four years, won Breakthrough Player of the Year, came back and just won the French Pro D2. Chilliboy Ralepelle got eight years after two previous positives. Elton Jantjies got four years and is now coaching at a school in Johannesburg at 33. Meanwhile no All Black or England rugby player has ever been banned for performance-enhancing drugs. Not one. A former Georgian captain got 11 years for swapping samples. South African rugby has a problem it refuses to name properly. TOPIC 4 — TOP ATHLETES WHO NEVER WON Karl Malone. Jim Kelly — four straight Super Bowls, four losses, no ring. Jonah Lomu — changed rugby forever in 1994, lost to the Springboks in 1995, never lifted the Webb Ellis Cup. Cristiano Ronaldo — won in England, Spain, Italy and Saudi Arabia, five Ballons d'Or, a European Championship — and no World Cup. Merlene Ottey — seven Olympics, nine medals, zero gold. And an entire generation of South African cricket: Kallis, AB, Amla — individually brilliant, collectively never champions. Pete Sampras and Martina Navratilova never won Olympic singles gold. Sometimes the biggest prize is the one that gets away. FAST FIVE — QUESTIONS ONLYIvan Lendl represented two countries at the Olympics — name both.Brian O'Driscoll played 141 internationals for Ireland and the Lions. How many Rugby World Cups did he play in — and name the years.Which club has suffered the most losses in UEFA Champions League history — and what is their win percentage?

Ep. 36 - Hospitality prices, Too much Rugby, RSA IPL, Sporting Duos, FFFFs

TOPIC 1 — HOSPITALITY Watching sport used to cost the price of a ticket. Now it costs the price of a small car, a hotel in Sandton, and your children's university fund. Welcome to corporate hospitality. Watching the Springboks play the All Blacks will set you back R9,995. That's before you've had a drink. The Barmy Army flew to South Africa for three Tests — 23 nights, flights included — and paid up to R210,000 each. The All Blacks' full 31-day tour package hit 384,000 Rand. No flights. Sold out anyway. Meanwhile the ordinary fan is standing in a queue at Loftus in the rain wondering why his pie costs R85. TOPIC 2 — URC vs SUPER RUGBY The Bulls fly to Belfast on a Tuesday. The Stormers play Dublin on a Saturday. The Springboks play New Zealand in July. Nobody is sleeping. Welcome to the calendar from hell. The URC is more physical, more competitive and better for SA rugby. Also: the players are awake for eleven months of the year and the Currie Cup has lost 120 of its best players. Super Rugby had bad travel and worse results. The URC has great travel and great results — and a Champions Cup that nobody in South Africa can explain, a Challenge Cup that nobody watches, and a scheduling problem that SA Rugby is now desperately trying to solve before someone actually collapses. TOPIC 3 — IPL UPDATE Klaasen is third in the run charts. Rabada is second in wickets. Markram has no fifties. Jansen is struggling. And Quinton de Kock has played three innings and averaged 66. Cricket is chaos. Heinrich Klaasen is batting out of his skin — 555 runs, average 50, in the middle order. Rabada has 21 wickets. And then there is everyone else. Markram has no fifties. Jansen is really struggling. Ngidi got injured just when his slower ball was terrifying people. De Kock has played three times and averaged 66 — a statistical masterpiece of irrelevance. The surprise package is Donovan Ferreira, striking at 173 for Rajasthan like a man who heard there was a party and showed up early. Baby AB is watching from the dugout. Virat Kohli is 38 and averaging 54. South African cricket: it's complicated. TOPIC 4 — BEST SPORTS DUOS Shaq and Kobe couldn't be in the same room. Matfield and Bakkies barely needed to speak. Wasim and Waqar destroyed everything. Great duos are built on chemistry — or beautiful, productive dysfunction. Shaq and Kobe won three NBA titles and then imploded spectacularly — both going on to win separately, as if to prove the partnership was the problem and the brilliance was personal. Wasim and Waqar took 559 Test wickets together and scared a generation of batsmen into early retirement. Anderson and Broad took 1,039 — together, over a career so long their opponents' children had started playing cricket. Matfield and Bakkies played 62 Tests, won a World Cup, beat the Lions, and collected trophies like most people collect speeding fines. And Navratilova and Pam Shriver won 109 consecutive doubles matches — which in tennis terms is basically winning every Tuesday for three years. TOPIC 5 — FUN FAST FIVE FACTS Five questions. No help. No Googling. And if you say "I think it's..." you've already lost. Q1: How many times did Glenn McGrath dismiss Mike Atherton in Test cricket — and how many were ducks? Q2: Which Springbok front row trio holds the record for most Tests together — and how many times did they play as a unit? Q3: Which SA family produced a father, a son, and a coach — all three affecting South African cricket — and how? Q4: Which SA bowling partnership has taken the most Test wickets combined — and how many? Q5: The Bryan Brothers won 118 doubles titles together. Which Grand Slam did one of them win separately — with a completely different partner — after the brothers retired?

Episode 35 - Surprise return for Proteas women, French Open, Player pay, 1 hit and quit, Fast 5!

1) Surprise recall in the Proteas woman World Cup team. Balanced team , ready for World Cup. 2) Roland Garros, the clay, no Carlitos, can anyone stop Sinner? Is Iga back and can there be a new champion. 3) Sports pay, Premier League players earn huge relative to revenues, IPL players too, tennis players not so much. Mbappe earns 25 times Dupont!! 4) Who made 100 and a 50 in their only test match and then got chopped? Who scored 6 tries for the Boks on debut and then never scored a try again? 5) Fun fast five facts. Shabnim facts galore!

Episode 34 - Golden Oldies, u20 Championship, EPL, Sports Songs, Fun Fast Five

GOLDEN OLDIES Five people who refused to retire. Merlene Ottey competed at seven Olympics across 33 years, finishing for Slovenia at 52. Martina Navratilova won a Grand Slam title at 49 — a month shy of her 50th birthday. Venus Williams still making WTA main draws at 44. Ma'a Nonu still bulldozing defenders in the French Top 14 at 43. Imran Tahir still taking T20 wickets at 47 — at a better average than his career stats. U20 RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP Back-to-back champions. Junior Springboks clinched the 2026 title with a round to spare — 56-17 against Australia in Gqeberha. Argentina helped by beating New Zealand in the same round. Nine-match winning streak going back to last year's World Championship in Italy. Key players: Yaqeen Ahmed, Jack Benade, Riley Norton. How many of this squad play for the senior Boks within five years? EPL RUN-IN Arsenal lead with three games left and have just reached the Champions League final in Budapest on 30 May. Bukayo Saka beat Atletico Madrid 2-1 on aggregate. They haven't won the league in 22 years. They've never won the Champions League. Both are now on the table simultaneously. City dropped points at Everton when it mattered most. Remaining: West Ham, Burnley, Crystal Palace. SPORTS SONGS Sister Bethina. A young man called Mgarimbe jumped on a microphone at Action Bar in downtown Johannesburg at two in the morning, wasted, and sang over a beat his friend had made on a laptop. The next morning he begged his friend to delete it. He didn't. A few weeks later Mgarimbe was sitting in his Hillbrow flat and heard a taxi drive past playing his song. That song is now played after the national anthem at every Springbok home test. South Africa's unofficial second national anthem. FUN FAST FIVE FACTS