Springbok Squad - Question marks raised

So Peter deVilliers finally revealed the squad that will be playing overseas for the next couple weeks. Needless to say it revealed quite a few question marks. Below is the line up for this Saturday's fixture against Wales: 15 Frans Steyn 14 Gio Aplon 13 Jaque Fourie 12 Butch James 11 Odwa Ndungane 10 Ruan Pienaar 9 Ricky Januarie 8 Joe van Niekerk 7 Dewald Potgieter 6 Francois Louw 5 Andries Bekker 4 Danie Rossouw 3 BJ Botha 2 John Smit (capt) 1 CJ van der Linde Reserves: 16 Chiliboy Ralepelle 17 Jannie du Plessis 18 Alistair Hargreaves 19 Ryan Kankowski 20 Meyer Bosman 21 Juan de Jongh

22 Bjorn Basson

So here begins my questions. Firstly, where on earth is Jean de Villiers? Well the former Stormer Centre injured his shoulder whilst playing for Munster and as is ruled out for the entire winter tour of Europe. As a result he has been replaced by Butch James, who will play alongside Bath's Jacques Fourie in midfield. Another surprise call up was Joe van Niekerk. Absent from the Sprinbok team for close to 5 years, the large 8th man has made a return to the Squad. During his absence he played for french side, Toulon. He is best known for crying during the singing of the national anthem at any international fixture.. the emotions truly run deep with this Giant! Meyer Bosman made his debut for the boks in 2006. The Cheetahs flyhalf and midfielder was most famous for scoring the winning points against the Bulls in the 2005 Currie Cup. He was later called to represent South Africa against Wales in Cardiff which the Boks won 33-16. Bjorn Basson, another surprise call up, is a wing from the Cheetahs outfit. He is most famous for participating in the winning Springbok team in the IRB Nations Cup 2008. Lots of talent, very little experience. Hopefully he will get more than one cap on this tour. Alistair Hargreaves has an awesome pedigree as well, representing the SA U/19 side to the U/19 World Cup in 2004 and 2005. He captained the winning 2005 side. He also represented the U/21 SA side in 2006.

The Islander's Suggestions: Place Juan de Jongh in the starting lineup at inside centre, with Butch James moving to the flyhalf position. Ruan Pienaar will sit on the bench, probably only getting 15 mins game time. De Jongh has perhaps been the best centre in the Super 14 this season and deserves a starting position alongside his partner, Fourie. The Wales match should be an eye-opener. At the moment, out of 23 games against the Welsch, the boks won 21 of them (with 1 loss and 1 draw). My prediction, the Boks will win by 7. Lets hope my prediction this week is better than the Super 14 final (I predicted the Stormers by 14... boy, was I wrong!).

Windies blown away by Rampant Amla

Deja Vu... that's the only way I can describe last night's ODI. The West Indies once again managed to establish a desirable position only to botch it up in the end. Needless to say the fielding was somewhat reminiscent of the 1998 Windies side who toured South Africa. Hansie Cronje', SA' then Captain, was relentless in the way he constructed his game plans. As a result the Windies failed miserably then as they did last night. So this is how it all went down. Finally after winning the toss the Windies, often bold Captain, Chris Gayle opted to bat first. That was rather unusual considering his insane decisions in the preceding fixtures to bowl first. The Opening batsman, Chris Gayle and Dale Richards walked on to the crease with mass uncertainty. Dale Richards was a highly debatable selection from the beginning of the series. You may remember him in last years "B Side Windies team" which participated in worldwide cricketing fixtures in place of the regular outfit due to contract disputes. He, along with Travis Dowlin, Kemar Roach and Gavin Tonge were highly impressive inclusions in last years Bangladesh disasters as well as the ICC Champions Trophy. So, I really don't get the whole mass confusion over Dale Richard's selection. The man played well enough in a disastrous side and as a result deserved a shot. He scored yet another fifty last nite, one which involved various ground strokes and lofted cross batted punchers of the bowling of Tsotsobe. He later fell a couple runs after getting his fifty. Dwayne Bravo and Chanderpaul looked superb and really took advantage of a bouncing wicket. Darren Sammy, perhaps the most entertaining cricketer of this series looked like his spirit was depleted and failed to trouble the scorers. Pollard and Bernard were looking great and managed to take the score pass the 300 mark. Gayle felt that they were 30 runs short at the end of the match, and I completely agree with him! The middle order failed to develop formidable partnerships which would have truly placed SA out of contention. Hashim Amla thought otherwise. He along with Smith managed to take advantage of the slow bowling of David Bernard. Kieron Pollard didnt really impress with the Ball. Bravo managed to uproot the stumps of Smith only to allow Kallis to come in and assist Amla to his hundred. Kallis played slightly unconventionally with sweep-slogs and advancing down the track to pacers. At 170/2 the South Africans looked unstoppable. Amla reached to 129, despite being dropped twice. The fielding was truly shocking especially off the bowling of the innings best bowler, Ravi Rampaul. Darren Sammy was clearly the most significant culprit of the night by missing a standard bump ball at point, followed by a poor through to the wicket keeper, Ramdin, allowing Amla and Kallis to get 2 bonus runs. The next ball was almost an action replay with Kallis bumping an extremely decent ball to Sammy with the end result being 5 runs!!! How did this happen.. well Sammy figured that he ought to make up for his blunder 2 minutes previously, by taking a shy at the stumps... missing it completely. The comical show was far from over... with JP Duminy, a man who is clearly not in form. He made two attempts at getting a boundary, which resulted in him mistiming it... on both occasions he was dropped. The culprits.. the brothers Bravo with Dwayne dropping it at midwicket and Darren at deepish long on. Fazeer Mohammed perhaps said it best... "Clearly the West Indies don't want this...". This was clearly the case until the last over of the game. With not one, but two dot balls and only conceding 2 runs from the over... the game looked like it may end in a draw. De Villiers punched a ball straight to Sammy only for him to screw up any chance of a draw. So what can be learned from this? South Africa played their best cricket in the series last night. Amla is definitely their most in form batsman. Darren Sammy was a hero turned villain but shows promise for the future of West Indian cricket. Richards is truly the comeback kid and is guaranteed opener for the next 2, maybe 3 seasons. Graeme Smith will surely keep his captaincy, should South Africa (most likely) win the test series. I can only pray at this point that the West Indies fight back in the test matches as they have done against most successful nations. So, on behalf of the Islander Republic, we salute you Hashim Amla!!!

Dennis Hopper, 1936 -2010

From humble beginnings as a villainous antagonist in rebel without a cause to singing as the blue-eyed, Frank Sinatra in "the night we called it a day", Dennis Hopper has passed away. The infamous actor was diagnosed with Prostate cancer no longer than 7 months ago. He performed several roles on the silver screen, the most notable was perhaps his role as Billy, a comedic biker in "Easy Rider". Below is a clip from this iconic feature.

Other notable roles include Out of the blue, Apocalypse now and Hoosiers. Hig profiled actors who had the honour of starring with Hopper can be spread throughout 3 generations beginning with James Dean, Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando and ending with the likes of Sir Ben Kingsely, Penelope Cruz and Christina Ricci. He is without doubt, the original rebel without a cause and made movie magic in many of his roles. He will always be remembered as the true all American badass riding down the highway on his chopper. The Islander republic will miss you Mr Hopper and salute you in gratitude for your superb performances on the silver screen. He was 74.

Welcome to Chop City - Justin Bieber walks into a glass door

So I will admit that I'm not the biggest Justin Bieber fan out there. This is by no means an effort to slate the talented young singer. However this is golden! If you really want to see this cho... I mean, talented young musical genius walk into a glass door, click below. Personally, I think hes ok. However, it is the established blokes like Usher and Ludacris that should be shunned. They are clearly using this lightie as a cash cow or rather a cash-lamb.. Either way, Usher and Ludacris flushed their reps as legendary singer and rappers down the tubes by succumbing themselves to the teenage pop scene. In Justin Bieber's Baby song, Ludacris raps about his youth and trying to seduce a young 13 year old girl at the playground during recess. 5 years ago Ludacris would have rapped about putting a magnum against your skull and popping a "40" thereafter! Bieber should rather continue a solo career and perhaps team up with the likes of Vanessa Hudgens and Miley Cyrus and leave the homies from Compton alone!

News Anchor talks about his junk on air!!

Somethings should not be said in the presence of others.. especially if its approximately 4 million viewers! This ABC news anchor, after a serious discussion on beauty therapy and sexual foreplay (this is what news has come to) decided to blurt out a really random comment about his "junk". Not only is that the coolest thing that any man would want to talk about on live television, it is regrettably not socially accepted! So if my guess is correct, our unfortunate hero of the day would have received a call from his boss about that (for his sake lets hope he doesn't blurt out the "P word" again. )

New kid on the block - Howard Wong!

Meet 3 year old drummer,. Howard Wong. An enthusiastic and yet another talented Asian kid is rocking it out in his little drum set. I can see this becoming a potential viral ad for an Insurance firm! With a catch phrase, "Anything is possible!" Check out his performance in the video below.

Megamind - Good Vs Evil twisted completely

So one of my colleagues was kind enough to share a link with me. Often he would send a "meat-spinning" video which for all sakes and purposes I will not go through with you. Megamind, one of the biggest budgeted animated releases of 2010 contains an all star cast and an even better storyline. Check out the Megamind trailer below:

The plot contains two significant characters, one being the Superhero, Metroman (Brad Pitt) and the other the Super-villain and star of the movie, Megamind (Will Ferrell). Both characters crash into earth from an imploding planet (similar to the Superman storyline) with Metroman bypassing Megamind first causing him to spin. That was essentially the beginning of this age-old rivalry. The plot thickens when Megamind accidentally kills his nemesis, Metroman. This movie appears to be rather humorous with witty one liners from famous comedian and cast member, Tina Fey. The movie also contains Jonah Hill, star of movies such as Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Knocked up. Megamind is set for release on the 5th November 2010.

Google unveils multi million channel TV!

Its about time that the worlds most widely used search engine and highly visited site pool their resources to form the very first multi million channel TV. On Thursday, Google once again made history by rolling out the Internet conglomerate's venture into web-TV integration. Thanks to the Google Android operating system, users are now permitted to search for content through:

• Television
• DVR
• World Wide Web

This is flipping awesome! Now we are truly spoilt for choice and we will never be faced with an age-old concept of "having a million channels on cable/ satellite and nothing to watch"! This fantastic initiative will allow various users, worldwide to search for content, from the name of a TV show to the name of a network, in much the same way a Google search works. They'll get results from TV and the web and be able to watch either on their TV screen. How cool is that? I already feel like a modern day Bruce Wayne with this much technology in my hands!! What is the output? Well, for starters you will need a cube like device known as the Boxee-box. This device will be released in the retail outlets worldwide possibly in the Xmas holiday season. I clearly know what I want for Xmas and it ain't an iPhone anymore! No prices were announced as yet.. but don't expect anything cost-effective regardless of the economic conditions.

11 years in the making.... the Stormers are in the semis!!

Thats right islanders, the Stormers, as most of you may have noticed by now, are in the Super 14 semi-finals. Who would have thought?! After several failed attempts at clinching the coveted Super 14 championship, the Stormers are a mere 160 minutes. I sound rather bold don't I? However, like most determined Stormers supporters I was rather despondent, bleak and rather annoyed at the blue clad-ed boys (previously back of which prior to being black the jersey was a combinations of mustard yellow, white and blue - thank you for saving us Bob) performances over the years. Ok so for some of you kiddies, barring Santles and maybe Asher, may remember the Stormers making it in the 1999 Super 12 semi-finals. The Stormers beat practically everyone from the hurricanes to the Bulls (who sucked ass that time). This was largely attributed to a young, charismatic Captain playing in the 8th-man position, Bobby Skinstad. Bob, as he now likes to be called was perhaps the most marketable player next to Chester Williams in the 90s. However, this rugby stud did much more than participate in a Spur steak ranch commercial, he inspired the Mother City to show their passion for the hooligan's game (played by gentleman). He was rather prolific in the jersey colour change and made use of his status as a sex symbol to generate support from the entirety of the Western Cape. On a serious note, I don't think I have ever seen so many hot chicks in Rugby field. Thanks to Uncle Bob, this is a regular feature in all rugby fixtures throughout the country. So on behalf of the Islander republic, we salute you Bob Skinstad!

Pos	Name	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	Diff	BP	Pts
1	Queensland Reds	11	8	1	2	233	170	+63	2	36
2	Stormers	11	8	0	3	290	244	+46	4	36
3	Otago Highlanders	11	8	0	3	280	203	+77	3	35
4	Canterbury Crusaders	11	7	1	3	324	262	+62	3	33
5	ACT Brumbies	11	5	0	6	278	195	+83	8	28
6	Waikato Chiefs	11	5	0	6	248	301	-53	6	26
7	Sharks	11	5	1	5	241	232	+9	3	25
8	Waratahs	11	4	1	6	246	248	-2	6	24
9	Auckland Blues	11	4	1	6	202	201	+1	5	23
10	Wellington Hurricanes	11	4	1	6	213	226	-13	4	22
11	Cats	11	4	0	6	312	341	-29	6	22
12	Northern Bulls	11	1	0	10	203	447	-244	3	7

Super 12 1999, the final log standings

Back to the semi-final of 1999 - The Stormers were the absolute favorites in winning the Super 12 that year. There advantages were:

• an Inspirational captain
• Had an 8-3 ratio, exact same to the top 3 teams
• Had a home semi-final
• Strong financial support.... oh wait, thats not true!

That last point could have very well been the source of the Stormers failure in 1999. The Stormers were pitted against the then, Otago Highlanders, perhaps New Zealand's worst team at present. During their final week of preparation there were allegations that several pay disputes occurred in the Stormers camp. Particularly, Pick n' Pay promised several incentives should they make it to the semi's. Either the incentives weren't provided, or the other sponsors weren't playing ball, the Stormers botched it up completely in what could have been South Africa's first ever accomplishment in obtaining a Super rugby championship (for the next 8 years at least). The Stormers lost 33-18, despite one of Breyton Paulse's legendary intercept tries occurring that chilly evening. The Crusaders began a winning rampage lasting for almost 6 years and became the first side to ever win the Super 12 sitting in 4th place. Everyone has a shot at winning this ladies and gents... everyone!

So will history repeat itself? Or will the Stormers put aside all financial concerns and sponsorship deals and take the hand of destiny, in an effort to become the 2nd South African team to ever win the Super 14 (it will be the 3rd occasion)? To all Stormers supporters out there, please go out and show your support... whether it be buying a Stormers jersey, wielding a Die Burger signboard or going to Newlands or a Sports Pub in Blouberg - Storm Saam!!!!