Sport24 award for Francois Hougaard

Hougaard was a mullet on a mission as he produced successive live-wire performances at scrum-half for the Springboks, first in defeat to the All Blacks at Soweto, but then in a man-of-the-match effort as the Boks bounced back against the Wallabies in Pretoria. He was dynamic and
massively committed throughout and fully earned his 37.80 percent of the 2304 votes cast on Sport24.

Hougaard held off the "Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius (20.27 percent), who set a new world record over 400 metres (47.04 seconds) in his comfortable victory in the T44 category at the Aviva London Grand Prix meeting at Crystal Palace.

Caster Semenya took third place with 14.54 percent of the votes for her successful comeback, which included dipping back under the 2:00 mark to clinch the 800m event at the ISTAF meet in Berlin. It was the same track where she had triumphed at the 2009 World Championships.

What a plonker!

Whilst Hougaard has a recognisable mullet, his coach Peter de Villiers has one very recognisable mouth, which his bosses hoped would stay closed once in a while. Foot-in-mouth ailments continued to stalk the slightly embattled Springbok coach during the month. Not only did his charges' Tri-Nations woes continue against the All Blacks at Soweto, but he made statements implying that assistant Gary Gold was only the third-best defence coach in the country, and then blasted Western Province for their reluctance to release their own defensive guru Jacques Nienaber to the Bok cause. Div earned the Sport24 Plonker of the Month with an overwhelming 59.46 percent of the votes, whilst the Bok women's Rugby World Cup team came in second place for their dismal campaign.

Boep around her knees

Their Pool A effort included lamentable 55-3 and 62-0 hammerings at the hands of New Zealand and Australia respectively, and they looked streets off the pace fitness-wise. One wag on SuperRugby suggested a certain Bok forward "had her boep around her knees". Talking of boeps, Benni McCarthy stumbled his way into third place with 13.88 percent of the votes. The beefy West Ham striker continued to battle with weight-loss issues - er, lack of weight loss, that is - this month. His Body Mass Index was still considered too high as the season began, so he was threatened with losing a week's wages, while manager Avram Grant revealed that he felt Benni was capable only of "13 minutes" in a match!