🇿🇦 CONGRATULATIONS TO RASSIE ERASMUS ON BECOMING THE MOST CAPPED SPRINGBOK COACH 🏉 Coaches don’t usually last in South African rugby. The job chews through good men in three years or less, undone by one bad Rugby Championship, one refereeing controversy, one boardroom whisper campaign that turns into a headline. Rassie Erasmus has been in and around the Springbok setup for eight years now, and on Saturday at Loftus Versfeld, against Scotland, he takes charge of his 55th Test as head coach. Nobody has ever done that before him. 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #RassieErasmus #Springboks

🇿🇦 HAPPY BIRTHDAY ULI SCHMIDT - THE BOELIE WHO BECAME A HEALER 🎉 There are rugby players you remember for the scoreboard. And then there are those you remember for the sound they made when they hit a ruck — the ones whose reputation walked onto the field a full ten metres before they did. Uli Schmidt belongs firmly in the second category. Born on this very day, 10 July 1961, in Pretoria, he turns 65 today. And what a strange, brilliant contradiction of a life it has been. Happy Birthday, Uli. The man they called “die Boelie” now spends his working days healing people instead of hurting them. 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #UliSchmidt #Rugby #Birthday

🔥 THEY WENT FOR HER THROAT, BUT CAITLIN CLARK JUST KEPT BREAKING RECORDS 🏀 Caitlin Clark added another line to her résumé on Friday... The WNBA named her Eastern Conference Player of the Month for June, the second time in her career she's won the award, and only the second Indiana Fever player ever to do it. The first was Hall of Famer Tamika Catchings, who won it three times. The numbers behind it are absurd. Over 10 games in June, Caitlin Clark averaged 21.9 points, 8.2 assists and 4.0 rebounds, shooting 45.6 percent from the field and 35.1 percent from three. She ranked fourth in the league in scoring and second in assists. Indiana went 7-4 and ran the WNBA’s best offense over that stretch, averaging a league-leading 95.5 points a game. 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #CaitlinClark #WNBA #Basketball

🇿🇦 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TATJANA SMITH - THE GIRL NEXT DOOR WHO BECAME SA’S GREATEST OLYMPIAN 🎉 Tatjana Smith, born on this day, 9 July 1997, in Johannesburg, turns 29 today, and the touch in Paris is where most people’s memory of her career ends. It is not where the story starts... 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com Happy Birthday, Tatjana. From all of us at Just Plain Sport, thank you for a world record still standing, four Olympic medals, and a retirement written entirely on your own terms. 🎂🏊‍♀️ #JustPlainSport #TatjanaSmit #olympicgoldmedalist #happybirthday

🇿🇦 SA’S JAVELIN QUEEN JO-ANÉ DU PLESSIS RETURNS TO MONACO AFTER CAREER-SAVING SURGERY Two days before the South African Championships, Jo-Ané du Plessis woke up and her left calf would not work. There was no pain. No warning. Just a leg that had stopped answering. She had spent months building toward that weekend in the best shape of her life, and by the time she understood what was happening, the meet was already gone. An emergency MRI delivered the verdict. A tear in her L5/S1 disc had allowed fluid to leak out and compress the nerve root running down her leg. There was no rehab pathway, no conservative option, no waiting it out. She needed an urgent microdiscectomy, and she needed it immediately.. 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #javelin #JoAnéduPlessis #MonacoDiamondLeague @joanevdyk

LIONS CLAIM JUKSKEI DERBY WIN OVER BULLS AT THE CRAVEN WEEK Six minutes. That’s all that separated the Golden Lions from a Jukskei Derby collapse, and all it took for them to turn it into one of the great Craven Week finishes instead. The Blue Bulls, missing three players to injury before a ball was even kicked, had no right to make this as hard as they did. For most of Craven Week’s Tuesday afternoon at Grey High School, they didn’t. 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #CravenWeek #Rugby

🇿🇦 JUNIOR BOKS COMPLETE FLAWLESS POOL CAMPAIGN AT WORLD JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP 🔥 The Young South Africans have completed the pool phase of the World Rugby Junior World Championship with a 100 percent record, beating Wales U20 52-33 at Avchala Stadium in Tbilisi on Tuesday. It wasn't the routine procession the final scoreline suggests. Wales, unbeaten themselves coming into the match, tore into the Junior Boks from the kick-off. Winger Caio James crossed inside three minutes, converted by Carwyn Leggatt-Jones, and Steffan Emanuel added a second try soon after. Just nine minutes in, the defending champions found themselves 14-0 down in a match they had to win to guarantee a home run into the semi-finals. The response was immediate. Hendre Schoeman got the Junior Boks on the board in the 11th minute, and Ethan Adams followed with a try of his own five minutes later, both converted by Yaqeen Ahmed. There was a personal storyline behind those conversions. Ahmed started at flyhalf in place of the concussion-sidelined Luan Giliomee, making his first appearance since serving a suspension picked up on SA 'A' duty. He didn't put a foot wrong off the tee all afternoon, finishing the match with six successful conversions. From there, the Junior Boks began to find their rhythm, working through captain Siphosethu Mnebelele's driving-maul game to chip away at the deficit. Wales lost flanker Jac Pritchard to a yellow card in the 34th minute, and the extra man told almost immediately. "Wales came out swinging and for ten minutes it looked like the Junior Boks might actually be caught cold. What stood out was how quickly they reset. No panic, just composure, and that's exactly what you want to see from a group defending a title." -✍️ JAY | JPS

🇿🇦 PIETER-STEPH DU TOIT FOUR CAPS FROM 100 AS BOKS CHASE 10TH STRAIGHT WIN OVER SCOTLAND 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Four Test caps. That’s the gap between Pieter-Steph du Toit and rugby‘s most exclusive club, and he’ll close in on it leading the Springboks against Scotland for the second week running. Get there and Pieter-Steph du Toit joins a group of players who’ve reached three figures for South Africa, a milestone that sits alongside the honours already on his shelf: World Cup winner, World Rugby Player of the Year, and now captain in consecutive Tests... 🎙️ FULL STORY on JustPlainSport .com #JustPlainSport #Springboks #SAvsSCO #PSDT