JP Pietersen on poor Sharks showing: ‘It’s not nice to see’

After a disappointing 54-0 hammering from the All Blacks, Sharks coach JP Pietersen said it was a disappointing scoreline, but that his team had put up a fight.

The All Blacks were given a scare by the Stormers in their Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry opener last Friday, drawing 14-all in the 67th minute before pulling away for a comfortable looking 38-21 win, and there was hope that the Sharks would produce a similar challenge. beltedkingfisher.blog

But it was not to be, although the home side did start the better of the teams, and had kept the score to 14-0 at halftime, before the All Blacks powered away in the second half.

“Look at the scoreboard, it’s not nice to see. But the boys fought from minute one to minute 80,” said Pietersen after the match.

“We couldn’t match their speed in the second half. We were just behind in everything they did. Every breakdown, every offload, every ball on the floor, they were just getting every offload.

“We’re in pre-season now. We’d prepped ourselves to go for it. It’s a once-off game, go for gold. I think that’s what the mindset was in the game. We were going to go for it, put pressure on them as much as we could. I think we did that in the first 15 minutes.”

It has to be said that the Sharks were unable to field as strong or experienced a team as the Stormers did, with a large number of players missing due to injury and Springbok commitments.

Special Nonu haka

But a special moment for them was seeing former All Black legend Ma’a Nonu, who has joined them in a short-term capacity, honouring his former team with a solo Haka after the tourists did theirs.

“He said to do the haka back is a sign of respect to the All Blacks. And it’s beautiful that he did the haka. He was quite nervous to do the haka by himself. That’s what he was more worried about. I got goosebumps when I saw it,” said Pietersen.

Sharks captain on the night Nick Hatton admitted that it had been a great occasion for the team, but now it was back to business as they prepare for the coming URC season.

“It was an awesome opportunity to play against the All Blacks. We are pretty disappointed with how that second half unfolded. But credit to the All Blacks, it was a proper performance from them,” said Hatton.

“It’s (now) back to pre-season for another month or so. It was good to get a hit-out, but we have lots to work on and we will certainly come back stronger.”

Bulls coach Johan Ackermann said that his team were relishing the chance to test themselves against the All Blacks in their Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry tour match at Loftus on Saturday, but admitted that they would not be at their peak for the match.

The game comes when the Bulls ordinarily would have just returned from their off-season break and would only be in the conditioning phase of their preparations for the coming season, but instead had to return early.

Having reached the United Rugby Championship final in late June, the Bulls also ended their season later than the other South African sides, leaving even less time off and time to prepare than some of the other teams have had.

“It’s not to use it as an excuse, but the fact that we went to the final means we had less time to prepare than the other franchises,” explained Ackermann.

“We would probably only just have returned from the break, we had to cut the break short. We have to give the guys a five-week break, but we could only give them three weeks.

“Conditioning is one thing, but your body, after three or four weeks, loses its contact ability. So we had to fast-track all of that. If this game wasn’t there, we would probably have been in a conditioning phase only. So it has put a bit of pressure on us.”

Ideal situation

Ackermann explained that the Bulls would ideally have liked to get some players match fit and tested some systems before heading into a game of this magnitude, but unfortunately they were unable to do that.

“Normally you play a warm-up match or two, you trial stuff, see if it works and see what players are in form. Now we’re basically picking from the squad we’ve got left, and then the odd guys who were unlucky not to be selected have been given off training. It’s a bit unfair, but that’s the hand we’ve got,” said Ackermann.

“It’s a great occasion, but we will definitely be a bit underprepared from where we want to be. We’re building up to the URC and that’s still a few weeks away, so we don’t want to peak now.

“We just want to embrace the occasion and hopefully get a reward for what we’ve tried to practise over the last few weeks.”

Despite their struggles, Ackermann says his team will be going all out to make things difficult for the All Blacks, and they will hope to challenge them like the Stormers did, and not be run over like the Sharks were.

“Listen, we’re competitive, and we’re going to give them a run for their money, hopefully. That’s the aim. We don’t want to make it easy.”

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Content creator and photographer Yamkela Njapha followed gsport from 2019 before answering the call for volunteers at the 21st gsport Awards, and here she shares what she found.

My name is Yamkela Njapha. I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences with a specialisation in Criminology, Forensic Studies and Psychology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Forensic Psychology.

On paper, that’s who I am. But in my heart, I am someone who is passionate about sport and driven by one big vision, which is to bring about equality in sport. My mission is to help bring visibility and real change to women’s sport, particularly in Africa, starting right here in South Africa. It’s the work I wake up thinking about. It’s why I’m currently working towards enrolling with the Football Business Academy.

Want to Work on the 2026 gsport Awards? Start Collecting Your Codes Tonight

I came across @gsport4girls on Instagram in 2019. At first, I didn’t fully understand the depth of the mission. But something about it made sense to me immediately. I followed the page so I could watch closely.

The more I learned, the more it became part of my dream to work with the gsport community. So when the announcement came that gsport was holding the Awards and looking for volunteers, I didn’t hesitate for a second. I followed the newsletter for four weeks straight, which carried the clues ‘WE’, ‘BUILD’, ‘THIS’, and ‘STAGE’, and which made one eligible for the application.

I didn’t apply for a specific role because I believe change comes from every angle. If there was a gap, I wanted to fill it. If there was work to be done, I wanted to do it.

The Thursday before the Awards, I got a call from gsport to check my availability to assist with content creation and photography at the Hall of Fame Luncheon on Friday, 7 August 2026. I was thrilled and nervous at the same time.

Creating content is something I always do, but creating it in a professional setup, for an initiative I value so deeply, felt different. I had no intention of failing.

I showed up, head held high. What I found was a community that was amazing and welcoming. That warmth made everything smooth. Sitting in that room, listening to the stories of women who had paved the way, I felt a deep sense of pride and responsibility behind the camera. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was home. I didn’t know it then, but the luncheon was only the beginning.

Awards night, on Saturday, 8 August 2026, was surreal. To actually feel the excitement in the room, to be surrounded by women and men who share the same vision and love for sport, in this case women’s sport, really moved me.

A moment that will stay with me was the speech from the Deputy Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Peace Mabe. It was so heartfelt. It made me emotional to know that the Department is also behind the initiative and advocating for us. Doing all of this on the eve of Women’s Day in South Africa made everything about it stick. It felt bigger than an awards show. It felt like history, a history I was proud to be a part of.

I was inspired. More than that, I was constantly reminded that there is always room for growth.

Seeing founders, partners, athletes, finalists and media houses all in one space, all aligned around the same vision, made so much sense to me. It showed me what’s possible when people come together with purpose.

From these two experiences I walked away with something bigger than photos or tasks completed. I left understanding the power of unity and resilience. I left understanding that before one can run, they need to walk.

The gsport community is filled with people who actually practice what they preach. People who will stop at nothing to fly the flag of women’s sport high.

gsport gave me more than a volunteer opportunity. It gave me confirmation. Confirmation that my mission matters. Confirmation that there is space for me in this world. And confirmation that when we show up for each other, we all rise.

I’m grateful to the entire gsport team, and every person who made me feel welcome.

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Main Photo Caption: Volunteer content creator and photographer Yamkela Njapha lent her lens and her energy to the gsport community, describing the experience as a homecoming that confirmed her mission to build visibility for women’s sport in Africa, at the 21st gsport Awards at Wanderers Club, Illovo, Johannesburg, on Saturday, 8 August 2026. All Photos: Supplied

Photo 2 Caption: Njapha has followed gsport since 2019, answering the call for volunteers to work at an Awards platform she had long admired from a distance.

Photo 3 Caption: Behind the camera at the Hall of Fame Luncheon, Njapha captured the stories of women who paved the way for the generation now rising in sport.

The post Yamkela Njapha: My gsport Journey ~ From Follower to Family appeared first on gsport4girls.

Lonwabo Miso speaks for a living. Radio first, then television, a career built on finding the right words quickly and delivering them cleanly to an audience that expects nothing less. On the night she won two gsport Awards, she could not find a single one.

“I don’t have words. My job is to speak but this moment I am speechless. I am truly grateful. This means a lot. I work very very hard. To feel and see this recognition, it tells me to keep going. It tells me that I am on the right track,” Miso said, holding the SABC Sport Woman in Radio and SABC Sport Woman in TV certificates.

In the minutes after they came off the stage at the 21st gsport Awards, seven of the evening’s honourees were asked the same simple question. Not what the award meant for their sport, or for the industry, or for the next generation, but what it felt like right then, in that moment, with the applause still going.

What came back was not a set of polished acceptance speeches. It was seven people caught somewhere between disbelief and gratitude, most of them still holding a certificate, nearly all of them talking faster than usual.

Laura Wolvaardt Crowned Athlete of the Year at the 21st gsport Awards

Miso’s answer contains the thread that runs through all of them. She does not describe the award as an ending or a prize. She describes it as information. It tells me to keep going. It tells me that I am on the right track. For a woman who has spent her career from Voice of Wits through Radio 2000 and on to SABC Sport making the case for women athletes, often to rooms that needed convincing, recognition arrives less as a trophy than as permission to carry on doing exactly what she has been doing.

That reading turns up again and again across the seven, in different registers.

For Cecilia van Bers, the Gallo Images Woman in Print winner, it arrived first as pure shock. The photographer has built a body of work documenting developmental and elite women athletes alike, specialising in youth events like the Curro Podium Finals where she captures junior potential long before anyone else is watching. She did not think the room was watching her.

“I am over-excited. I didn’t expect it. For the other contenders that were with me, well done you earned this as well. Yes as I say I am surprised, totally surprised,” Van Bers said.

Read that again and notice how fast she turns outward. Two sentences into her own moment of recognition, she is handing credit to the women she was up against. It is a small thing and it is not a small thing. The categories at these awards are competitive by design, but the reflex of the winner in the first thirty seconds was to make sure her fellow nominees knew they had earned it too.

Katleho Malebana turned outward as well, and even faster. At 17, the School Sports Star of the Year is the youngest voice in this set by a distance and the only one to name a complicated feeling rather than a simple one. She is a professional at Mamelodi Sundowns, a captain of South Africa at junior level, and by any measure the most decorated schoolgirl footballer in the country. None of that is where she went first.

“I have mixed emotions. I am very happy and excited. My parents have been there from the beginning, so I am grateful for them. This Award is dedicated to them,” Malebana said.

The gap between the scale of her year and the plainness of that dedication is the whole story of a teenage athlete. Everything that has happened to her has happened at speed, and the people who made it possible were there before any of it started.

Hlobisile Khumalo has been working in a corner of the industry that almost nobody thinks to look at. The founder of Necco Production made history as the first woman to travel with the Proteas Women as a camera operator, and the Public Choice Award put her in front of the audience rather than behind it for once.

“It’s a special one. Thank you to SuperSport and Cricket South Africa for giving me the opportunity. This is for everyone who voted for me. This is new for us. People recognising camera operators and the work we do. I do it for the love. I do it for the storytelling and everyone who believes in me and books me to do the work,” Khumalo said.

This is new for us. Of the seven answers, hers is the only one that treats the recognition as belonging to a category of people rather than to a person. Camera operators are the reason anybody sees any of this. They are also, almost by definition, the people the camera never turns towards. Khumalo used her thirty seconds to say that a whole craft had been seen, and then to name the thing that keeps her doing it when nobody is looking, which is the storytelling itself.

Stephanie Mawdsley located herself in the room by locating somebody else in it first. The Endeavour AV Woman in Social Media winner built Steph Talks Football into a platform that reached tens of millions of viewers in 2025, covering the elite game, the grassroots game and the emerging talent coming through across the continent. She won it on the night South Africa’s greatest women’s footballer took her place in the gsport Hall of Fame.

“I feel over the moon. Honestly the timing of this award is fantastic. Portia is here, 2026 Hall of Fame. I am here, I cover women’s football. How did this happen? I am here. I did it,” Mawdsley said.

The repetition does the work without any help. I am here. I am here. I did it. A woman who covers women’s football, honoured in the same room and on the same evening as Portia Modise, the first African footballer to score 100 international goals. Mawdsley is not claiming equivalence. She is saying that the coverage and the achievement belong to the same story, and that on this particular night both were standing in the same place at the same time.

Dr Debbie Alexander was the one who looked at the room rather than the stage. The Inverroche Global Woman in Sport recipient sits as World Triathlon’s First Vice President and holds the only International Federation seat on the International Paralympic Committee Governing Board, which is to say she spends most of her working life in rooms where South African women are scarce.

“I am feeling so blessed. It’s been an incredible evening. To just be part of it, 20 years of women in sport and the fact that Kass has done such an amazing job to acknowledge all women in sport. I have huge gratitude for this occasion. I feel truly blessed,” Alexander said.

Her answer is the widest of the seven. She is not talking about her own portfolio or her own career. She is talking about what has been built, and she credits Kass Naidoo by name for building it. From a woman who governs global technical and medical frameworks for a living, the choice to spend her moment describing somebody else’s twenty-year project is telling.

Which brings the evening back to where it started.

Penny Heyns was gsport’s very first honouree, inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame on 1 August 2006, before there was an archive, a Newsroom, a Hall of Fame with twenty-one names in it, or any evidence at all that a platform dedicated to South African women in sport could last. She received the 20 Years of gsport Award, and what she said was not about Atlanta, or the fourteen world records, or the fact that she remains the only woman in Olympic history to win both breaststroke titles at a single Games.

“I am very humbled. Every single time I attend gsport Awards I am just amazed at how well it’s doing and how it’s growing and the difference its making. And to see all of you guys, the platform that you are creating for women in sport and to be a part of it for the past 21 years, it’s been a privilege for me and I am humbled by the award tonight.”

Every single time I attend. That is a woman who has kept coming back for two decades, watching a thing she helped start turn into a thing that no longer needs her to survive. The difference its making. She is describing the six people above, and the twenty-one others honoured alongside them, and everyone who will stand on that stage in the years still to come.

Seven answers, then, and seven different words for the same feeling. Speechless. Over the moon. Over-excited. Mixed emotions. Blessed. Humbled. Special. Not one of them stayed on themselves for longer than a sentence or two before turning outward, to parents, to fellow nominees, to colleagues in a craft nobody notices, to the people who vote and believe and book the work, to a founder who has spent twenty-one years insisting that this be done properly.

That is what winning felt like at the 21st gsport Awards. Not arrival. Confirmation, permission, and a reason to keep going.

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Main Photo Caption: Sport, Arts and Culture Deputy Minister Peace Mabe was the VIP dignitary in attendance as gsport crowned 28 honourees across athlete, coach, federation, media and leadership categories at the 21st gsport Awards, where Lonwabo Miso completed a rare double, Portia Modise entered the Hall of Fame and Penny Heyns was recognised for two decades of service, at the Wanderers Club in Illovo, Johannesburg on Saturday, 8 August 2026. All Photos: Sachin du Plooy-Naran / Paul Mukwevho / (c) gsport 2026

Photo 2 Caption: Double honours went to Lonwabo Miso, who collected the SABC Sport Woman in Radio and SABC Sport Woman in TV certificates after building a broadcast career that runs from Voice of Wits through Radio 2000 to SABC Sport.

Photo 3 Caption: Photographer Cecilia van Bers, named Gallo Images Woman in Print, documents developmental and elite sportswomen alike, and spent her first seconds as a winner saluting the nominees who stood alongside her in the category.

Photo 4 Caption: At 17, School Sports Star of the Year Katleho Malebana captains South Africa at U17 and U20 level, plays professionally for Mamelodi Sundowns, and dedicated her evening to the parents who backed her from the very beginning.

Photo 5 Caption: Public Choice recipient Hlobisile Khumalo founded Necco Production and made history as the first woman to travel with the Proteas Women as a camera operator, bringing a rarely noticed craft into full public view.

Photo 6 Caption: Steph Talks Football founder Stephanie Mawdsley took Endeavour AV Woman in Social Media after a year that carried the women’s game to tens of millions of viewers across elite, grassroots and emerging talent levels.

Photo 7 Caption: World Triathlon First Vice President Dr Debbie Alexander received Inverroche Global Woman in Sport, and holds the only International Federation seat on the International Paralympic Committee Governing Board.

Photo 8 Caption: Olympic breaststroke champion Penny Heyns, gsport’s inaugural Hall of Fame inductee in 2006, accepted the 20 Years of gsport Award two decades after lending her name to a platform that was then wholly unproven.

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