Sports News 12:30

BULLETIN SPORTS NEWS 31 January 12:30 pm

Good day, let’s look at the latest sports news and scores:

# We start off with soccer: South Africa is through to the Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinals in the Ivory Coast after knocking out one of the tournament favourites, Morocco. Evidence Makgopa’s 57th-minute strike and a free-kick from Teboho Mokoena in the fifth minute of stoppage time saw Bafana Bafana beat the 2022 World Cup semifinalists. South Africa will next play Cape Verde on Saturday for a place in the last four. Coach Hugo Broos says beating Africa’s top-ranked side is special:

# Cricket: Durban’s Super Giants sealed a top-two finish on the SA20 points table with an eight-run victory over Pretoria Capitals at Kingsmead. Player of the match, Matthew Breetzke, scored 73 off 46 balls as the Super Giants posted 174 for nine in their 20 overs. Then, fast bowler Junior Dala claimed career-best figures of five for 26 runs to restrict the Pretoria Capitals to 166 for nine. Dala says they will carry this winning momentum heading into their game against the Joburg Super Kings on Saturday:

# Golf: Four-time major winner, Rory McIlroy, says it is more important to complete a merger between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf than it is to sort out punishments for defectors to the Saudi-backed circuit. He returns to PGA Tour action at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am in California tomorrow. England’s Tyrrell Hatton has become the latest high-profile player to join LIV Golf. McIlroy says the faster the merger can happen and start to have the strongest fields possible, the better it will be for the sport:

# Rugby: Fly-half Marcus Smith has been ruled out of England’s Six Nations opener against Italy in Rome on Saturday with a calf injury, sustained during training on Monday. This means George Ford and the uncapped Fin Smith are the only fly-half options for coach Steve Borthwick. England is already without centres Ollie Lawrence and Manu Tuilagi, back-row Tom Curry, and wing Anthony Watson due to injury. Assistant coach Kevin Sinfield says they are waiting on a second opinion on Smith’s scans to determine the length of his absence.

And finally, last year’s World Cup in France has emerged as the most-watched rugby event in history, and South Africa played a pivotal role in its success. World Rugby says the tournament boasted a 19-percent surge in viewership compared to the 2019 tournament in Japan. The showcase garnered an extraordinary 1.33-billion viewing hours. The Springboks contributed to the highest worldwide viewership of 481-million viewing hours. The final between the Boks and the All Blacks set a new record with 94-million viewing hours.

Stay tuned for more news………….