Thank the gods of rugby for the boys in blue – the Stormers this time. Their decisive 33-0 victory over the hapless Highlanders has done wonders for the Cape Town team’s mythology as the dark horses in this year’s Super 14 – and wonders for the reputation of back-up hooker Deon Fourie who scored the game’s first try with a man-of-the-match performance.

Hurricanes tame Lions, Sharks tank against Crusaders, Cheetahs go down to Highlanders, Bulls roar back to batter skilled Waratahs.

Bulls beat Brumbies hands down; Sharks mauled by Cheetahs; Stormers blow away Waratahs.

After three months of silence, Tiger Woods apologised to the world. The world’s buying it about as much as South Africans bought Jacob Zuma’s mea culpa, but that doesn’t mean we can’t wait to see him back on the course (Tiger, not JZ).

It is a sad, mad and downright bizarre story about the young athlete who once stood on the winner's  podium of the world's toughest cycle race, but now stands officially accused of hacking into the French national anti-doping laboratory computers.

Also this weekend: Bulls get off to cracking start in defence of Super 14 title, while Stormers overpower Lions.

Starting today, there will be many anxious men watching TV to see how the rugby teams they follow religiously will perform. And we're not talking about the Bulls fans wondering whether their team can retain the Super 14 title, or the Stormers fans still betting on a dark horse, or even the Sharks believers who remain convinced their team has not reached its full potential.

Big athletes pulling out, the organisers clamping down on free speech, an incredibly hectic security situation? Are these Vancouver’s Winter Games or that other event with the round ball down in Africa?

The Saints won the Superbowl. And if you don't understand why that is important – financially and psychologically – you really need this quick education on the sport, the game, and the all-important advertising.

A tournament that started so badly it can only be said to have ended well, after Pharaohs won their record seventh Africa Cup of Nations title, beating Ghana 1-0 in Luanda. Last night's final was the 19th game they’ve won in succession in Africa Cups, another great record.

Egypt hammered Algeria 4-0, making it through to their third successive Africa Cup of Nations final, and winning a record 18 Cup games in a row. If they win the tournament, that’ll be seven trophies in the bag, another record, and one that will give some comfort after they lost 2-0 to their North African rivals in their 2010 World Cup qualifier late last year.

Cricket South Africa plays with a straight bat, but that won’t stop the claims of race, politics and personal relationships from getting on the front pages.

Egypt beat Cameroon 3-1 in extra-time, winning a record 17 Africa Cup of Nations matches on the trot, and setting themselves up for a record seventh title and record three trophies in a row.

2010 World Cup qualifiers Ghana joined Angola, Algeria, Egypt and the Ivory Coast in the last eight of the Africa Cup of Nations, after their slim 1-0 victory over a revved up Burkina Faso side. That’ll sure please them ahead of “the greatest show on earth” in South Africa later this year.

The new stadium on the outskirts of Joburg that’s playing host to the World Cup’s most important events is, in a word, spectacular. Damn unfortunate, then, that stadium management has to be so shortsighted.

In a way, Tiger Woods is the duality of the human condition writ large. His fall from grace has been as spectacular as his heroic win at the US Open in 2000. Question is: how will this epic tale end?

Schalk Burger’s recent ban for eye-gouging is one thing; there are much weirder reasons for missing the game.

We all know the reasons to love it. Here are a bunch of reasons to hate it.

All participants in the 2010 Fifa Soccer World Cup go into the draw hoping to be placed in an easy group, but almost all come out thinking they didn’t get it. The truth is that easy groups don’t exist.

For South Africa, 2009 has been a grinding year; a fractious general election combined with the first economic recession since the advent of democracy. Can the World Cup lift a battered and sceptical nation?

There have been some embarrassing casualties in the wake of last week’s Tiger Woods affair, and not just concerning the man himself. How must Barack Obama feel?

Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Invictus, will be released in South Africa on December 11. Bok fans are likely to heap scorn on the rugby scenes, but hopefully it won’t matter.

If you suspect that modern competitiveness in sport, like Thierry Henry’s disgraceful cheating in the match against Ireland, is playing havoc with the notion of honour, then you’re a hopeless old fogey who takes this stuff far too seriously. But then again, you might just be right.

Ray Mali has been sent into Athletics SA to lay down the law according to Sascoc, the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee. But not everybody is ready to accept new management or the supremacy of the olympic body.

You probably need to be sitting down for this. Ok, ready? Benni McCarthy is actually a nice person.

Bafana Bafana coach Carlos Perreira is glad to be back. And by all accounts, “The Boys” like him too, so expect some samba in outings against Japan and Jamaica later this month.

Finally, after what’s been one of the most tragic episodes in the country’s sporting history, someone has taken action. And Leonard Chuene’s Pinocchio act has finally got him suspended.

The recession is biting deep enough that manufacturers are abandoning motorsport in droves, opting for more direct forms of marketing. Now the biggest carmaker in the world has left the most glamorous racing competition of them all.

From the man who wrote the book (the second book, if you are counting), a firsthand account of how the most famous chapter came to be. You know, the one about The Video.

Abandoned baby cheetah, Lightning Bolt, has a new mother – or rather a new Dad – in the form of Jamaica’s double world sprint champion, Usain Bolt.