Full list of players who have earned Protea Colours.

Nathan Anderson - the most 'capped' esports Protea player.

On Saturday, 15 July 2017 I wrote an article in which  a full list of all people who have earned Protea Colours for esports was published.

The list contains all the names of the players awarded Protea Colours.

Players are once again reminded that there is a difference between Protea Colours and National Federation Colours. The two are very different awards. The full list of gamers who have received Protea Colours for es[ports are:

Date	Name of player	Period	Club/Team
2016	Jason Batzofin	Manager	St John’s College
	Joline Bico	FIFA ‘16	HTS Witbank
	Lyle Jeacocks	CounterStrike: GO	Anteria
	Jessie Joubert (Team Captain)	CounterStrike: GO	Rondebosch Boys
	Dillon Justus	CounterStrike: GO	DF Malan
	Maryke Kennard	League of Legends	Tuks University
	Francois Mouton	HearthStone	Tuks University
	Taylor Rose	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Matthew Smith (Team captain)	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Leandré Sparks	CounterStrike: GO	Anteria
	Kyle Turnbull (Team Captain)	FIFA ‘16	HTS Witbank
	Johan Uys	League of Legends	Tuks University
	Johan van Breda	League of Legends	Tuks University
	Simon Zandstra	CounterStrike: GO	Rondebosch Boys
	Bonge Zwane	FIFA ‘16	HTS Witbank
2015	Anderson, Nathan	StarCraft II	Knights Mind Sports
	Batzofin, Jason	CounterStrike: GO	St John's College
	Boucher, Michael	CounterStrike: GO	BerZerK
	Boyes, Ryan	Manager	BNKR Gaming
	Brown, Thomas	CounterStrike: GO	All Stars
	Heymans, Johan (Team Captain)	CounterStrike: GO	BerZerK
	Kennard, Maryke (Team Captain)	League of Legends	Tuks Mindsports
	Krugel, Wilmar	CounterStrike: GO	BerZerK
	Meiring, Wynand	HearthStone Player	BerZerK Gaming
	Nortjé, Thylé	CounterStrike: GO	All Stars
	Smale, Duncan	CounterStrike: GO	St John's College
	Rose, Taylor	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Smith, Matthew	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Stringer, Vasudev	League of Legends	Tuks Mindsports
	Tilley, Cameron	League of Legends	Tuks Mindsports
	Uys, Johan	Coach	Tuks Mindsports
	van Wamelen, Bastion	CounterStrike: GO	St John's College
	Venter, Cornel	CounterStrike: GO	BerZerK
2014	Nathan Anderson	StarCraft II	Veneration
	Jason Bredberg	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Morizane Boyes	Tekken Tag Tournament II	BNKR Gaming
	Ryan Boyes	Manager	BNKR Gaming
	Dylan Henderson	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Saleem Manjoo	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Ion Todd (Team Captain)	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Timothy van Reenan Mostert	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Barry West	HearthStone	Tuks Mindsports
	Yolandi Williams	StarCraft II	Snaz Gaming
2013	Nathan Anderson	StarCraft II	Veneration
	Robert Botha	StarCraft II	PolarFluke
	Marco Botha	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Myburg Brink	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Anthony Hodgson (Team Captain)	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Lyrene Kühn (Team Captain)	Tekken Tag Tournament II	Knights Mind Sports
	Mohamed Wasim Lorgat	DotA 2	Energy eSports
	Dylan Probyn	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Justin Probyn	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
	Kyle Rhoodie	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Willem Strȍfeldt	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Conradie van Heerden	League of Legends	Knights Mind Sports
	Yolandi Williams	StarCraft II	Veneration
	Wesley Rose	DotA 2	Knights Mind Sports
2012	Robert Botha	StarCraft II	PolarFluke
	Gabriella Isaacs	StarCraft II	SAHETI
	Lyrene Kühn	Tekken Tag Tournament II	Knights Mind Sports
	Vittorio Puissa	Tekken Tag Tournament II	HS Dojo
2011	Robert Botha	StarCraft II	PolarFluke
	Olivia Burton	Texting	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Ginny Daly	Manager	Knights Mind Sports
	Jaco Engelbrecht	Cart Rider	Knights Mind Sports
	Wilbur Hough	Texting	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Ian Pillay	FIFA	University of Witwatersrand
	Jason van Belkum	StarCraft II	Knights Mind Sports
2010	Rolando de Alveiro	FIFA	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Magiel de Lange	WarCraft III	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Kevin Doran	Guitar Hero	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Abubakar Ebrahiem	FIFA	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Daniel Grundlingh	Call of Duty 4	KZN Gaming
	Michelle Marder	Manager - Guitar Hero	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Nialle Momsen	Call of Duty 4	KZN Gaming
	Peter Myburgh	Call of Duty 4	KZN Gaming
	Matthew Putter	WarCraft III	Fraglan
	Jo-Ash Rajcoomer	Call of Duty 4	KZN Gaming
	Steven Szucs	Call of Duty 4	KZN Gaming
2009	Marc Bowes	DotA	Bravado
	Ruben de Freitas	FIFA	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Matthew Hirst	DotA	Bravado
	Xola Magwaza	FIFA	Knights Mind Sports Club
	Kgothatso Moerane	Texting	Tuks Mindsports
	Goddy Roodt	DotA	ClubXploit
	Richard Sjoberg	DotA	Bravado
	Heinz Staschen	DotA	Bravado
	Christopher Van Riel	DotA	Bravado
	Natalie Witoslawski	Texting	Tuks Mindsports
2005	Logan Brooke-Smith	Mobile	Exactmobile
	Werner de Lange	Mobile	Exactmobile
	Wayne Kruger	Manager	Exactmobile
	Ethan Reuben	Mobile	Exactmobile
	Christo Janse van Vuuren	Mobile	Exactmobile

Imagine then my horror at seeing a  player publically claim that he has Protea Colours when, in fact, he only has National Federation Colours.

Such person who currently claims to have Protea Colours, and

who only has National Federation Colours, is Robert Hart.

MSSA celebrates its women.

Gabriela Isaacs who represented South Africa at IeSF’s 4th World Championships – Cheonan.

The quote by Ayn Rand, "The question isn't who's going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." epitomizes all  the women that have served on MSSA's committees and who have represented South Africa in international competition.

All of the women who have either served on the committee or been in a national team have been responsible, and contributed, to the radical transformation of Mind Sports South Africa.

MSSA today, as a result, is a very different organisation, to what it was even just three years ago.

MSSA today is an organisation that has gender equity on its Management Board and is, in my opinion, the only gaming organisation in the world that actively endeavours to to promote gender equity in its teams.

Mind Sports South Africa, thus, is the only country to have female representation in its national team at IeSF's World Championships every year since 2012.

In wargames and Morabaraba, MSSA's commitment to promoting women goes back even further.

However, there is no time for MSSA to rest on its laurels as there is still much, much more work to be done. The foundation is there, it just needs to be built upon.

The full list of women who have represented South Africa in international competition is as follows:

Year	Name	Club	Period	Event
2016	Maryke Kennard	Tuks Mind Sports Club	League of Legends	IeSF’s 8th World Championships – Jakarta
	Joline Bico	BNKR	FIFA ‘16	Test Match – South Africa versus Ghana
2015	Maryke Kennard	Tuks Mind Sports Club	League of Legends	IeSF’s 7th World Championships – Seoul
	Elishia Retief	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Ancients	IWF’s 12th World Championships – Mbabane
2014	Yolande Williams	Deviation Gaming	StarCraft II	IeSF’s 6th World Championships – Baku
	Morizane Boyes	BNKR	Tekken Tag Tournament II	IeSF’s 6th World Championships – Baku
	Elishia Retief	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Ancients	IWF’s 12th World Championships – Mbabane
2013	Lyrene Kűhn	Knights Mind Sports Club	Tekken Tag Tournament II	IeSF’s 5th World Championships – Bucharest
	Yolande Williams	Deviation Gaming	StarCraft II	IeSF’s 5th World Championships – Bucharest
2012	Gabriela Isaacs	SAHETI	StarCraft II	IeSF’s 4th World Championships – Cheonan
	Lyrene Kűhn	Knights Mind Sports Club	Tekken Tag Tournament II	IeSF’s 4th World Championships – Cheonan
	Sindiswa Mfamana	Knights Mind Sports Club	Morabaraba	4th Traditional World Games (TAFISA) -  Siauliai (Lithuania)
2011	Ginny Daly	Knights Mind Sports Club	Manager	LG World Texting Championships – New York
	Olivia Burton	Knights Mind Sports Club	Texting	LG World Texting Championships – New York
2010	Michelle Marder	Knights Mind Sports Club	Manager	World Cyber Games – Los Angeles
	Kgothatso Moerane	Knights Mind Sports Club	Texting	LG World Texting Championships – New York
	Natalie Witoslawski	Knights Mind Sports Club	Texting	LG World Texting Championships – New York
2008	Teresa Chen	Maritzburg Girls	Morabaraba	IWF’s 8th World Championships – Palapye
2007	Bernice Ligault	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Ancients	IWF’s 7th World Championships – Port Elizabeth
	Sindiswa Mfamana	University of Johannesburg	Morabaraba	IWF’s 7th World Championships – Port Elizabeth
2006	Bernice Ligault	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Ancients	IWF’s 6th World Championships – Athens
	Liesl Harmse	Algoa wargames Group	Ancients	IWF’s 7th World Championships – Athens
2005	Bernice Ligault	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Ancients	IWF’s 5th World Championships – Melbourne
	Joann Stathoussis	Peninsula Wargames Group	Manager	IWF’s 5th World Championships – Melbourne
1997	Sylvia Webster	Old Edwardian Wargames Club	Morabaraba	2nd Traditional World Games (TAFISA) - Bangkok

Liability for other people's comments.....

A number of owners and blogs allow any person to post anything that pops into their minds even if the statement is defamatory and quite untrue in the misguided belief that different rules apply to social media.

Thus over the past few years, more-and-more credible sites have begun vetting readers comments if not just disabling the feature altogether.

But what does the law say?

Please be so kind as to take note of the following:

In the matter of DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH V RAYAN SOOKNUNAN the facts are briefly that Mr Sooknunan put up a Facebook page which was then exploited by members of the public to post inflammatory and defamatory content directed at the church.

The Church brought proceedings against Sooknunan to cease and desist, as well as for damages incurred.

Sooknunans defence was that he was not responsible for content as he had not posted it.

The Court ruled that as Sooknunan was responsible for the Facebook page and allowed such defamatory content to be posted, based on his control of the site, he was liable for the defamation of the church.

It follows that any party who controls a page, blog, Internet home page, Facebook page etc., is not only responsible for own content, but all content posted to such a page.

It is therefore critical to monitor all content, regardless of origin, edit and remove all unwanted /content.

Thus the owner of the blog, Facebook page, and so forth, is deemed to to in agreement with the post made and is thus liable for such post.

Final entry date for MSSA's KwaZulu Natal Championships.

Alwyn van Wyk - MSSA's KwaZulu Natal's Provincial Director.

The final entry date for teams will be 20H00 on Wednesday, 2 August 2017.

If entries are not submitted before the close off date and time, entries will only be accepted in exceptional circumstances.

The championship is an awesome opportunity for scholars to earn Provincial and High School Provincial Colours for their respective games and provinces.
MSSA's 23rd KwaZulu Natal Provincial Championships shall be held at Maritzburg College, Pietermaritzburg, on 5 & 6 August 2017.

MSSA's 23rd KwaZulu Natal Provincial Championships is part of the process of selecting the 2018 Protea teams that will attend the various World Championships as well as helping to determine the venue for such 2018 National Team Trials.

The last time that MSSA held its National Team Trials in KwaZulu Natal was  in 1992.

Gamers are reminded that the event shall be filmed,  and the content screened on Tuluntulu.

All gamers are reminded that MSSA's 23rd KwaZulu Natal Provincial Championships are an open championship. In other words any registered player is entitled to enter the championship – no matter where they live, or their category of membership.

You may contact MSSA at mindsportssa@gmail.com

Details are as follows:

• Board gaming: http://esportscommentator.blogspot.co.za/2017/07/23rd-mssa-kwazulu-natal-board-gaming.html
• Esports: http://esportscommentator.blogspot.co.za/2017/07/kwazulu-natal-provincial-lan.html
• Wargaming: http://esportscommentator.blogspot.co.za/2017/07/22nd-mssa-kwazulu-natal-wargaming.html

The winners of MSSA's 22nd KwaZulu Natal Provincial Championships were:

Title	Name of player/team	Club	Colours awarded
Checkers – female	Sonja Brown	All Starts
Checkers	Gregory Haripersad	Maritzburg College	KZN Colours
CounterStrike: GO	Deadlock	Knights Mind Sports Club	KZN Colours
FIFA '16	Gregory Haripersad	Maritzburg College	already awarded
FIFA '16 – High School	Cameron Gold	Maritzburg College
FIFA '16 – Primary School	Joel van Wyk	Merchiston Prep.
HearthStone	Matthew Hoyle	Maritzburg College	KZN Colours
Mortal Kombat X	Leonard Loftus	MOeS
PES 2016 – female	Sydney Winkler	Eastwood Secondary	KZN Colours
PES 2016	Gregory Haripersad	Maritzburg College	already awarded
PES 2016 – High School	Jason Botha	Maritzburg College
Street Fighter V – female	Kiara Naiker	Saint Annes	KZN Colours
Street Fighter V	Leonard Loftus	MOeS
Tekken Tag Tournament II	Gregory Haripersad	Maritzburg College	already awarded

The trail that MSSA blazed...

MSSA's 2013 Protea Team in action in an online DotA 2 test match against Romania.

Recently I have heard a number of organisations laud themselves, sometimes quite vociferously, for getting esports to where it is today.

While everybody's effort has helped, in my opinion, none can surpass what Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA) has done for esports.

Those with purely a financial interest have largely come and gone, while others such as rAge seem to have real  staying power with an event that has created South Africa's only real answer to those types of events that are held overseas.

Yet, in terms of staying power, none have surpassed MSSA.

MSSA held its first esports event in 1998, and continued on from there.

In fact many of the people who claim to be 'community leaders' competed in many a MSSA event. Practically every person who now runs a private event or private company that owns a team has come through MSSA an been  awarded either provincial or national federation colours. There are even some who earned Protea Colours  and represented South Africa in an official capacity with pride and honour.

'Plugging away' for years allowed MSSA to get esports recognised as a sport in 2005, and with great delight, MSSA was  able to  award its team that went to the World Cyber Games (WCG) in 2005 with Protea Colours.

Since then, the award of Protea Colours to the National Team (if  it has met all the criteria) has been a regular occurrence.

MSSA has not stopped there. MSSA has broadened its footprint in South Africa and is continually pushing both gender and demographic representation in not only in its national teams, but in gaming as a whole.

MSSA too has encouraged a number of schools to accept esports as a sporting code - much to the delight of many a gamer.

Thus MSSA's contribution to gaming is indeed vast, and remains the foundation upon which all others operating in South Africa rest.

School league (4 term) - Rankings for DotA 2.

Oakhill College's team (Mr Project) in action.

Results for Mind Sports South Africa's Online School League for the week ending 28 July 2017 have produced some interesting results.

The schools that actively participated during the year in MSSA's provincial LAN championships, online provincial championships, and Ladder games are now reaping the benefit of their participation.

With schools participating in more competition games than ever before, it is clear to see that the average standard has improved hand-over-fist.

The improved average standard bodes well for future years as the growth and development at school level will  ultimately strengthen andd improve South Africa's National Protea Esports Team.

It is Mind Sports South Africa's belief that all development starts at school level where, under suitable supervision, the teams can learn to play together and improve the overall standard of play.

Westville High School  deserves special mention by having the greatest percentage increase in their seeding points in the first round.

The rankings after round one of the league are:

#	Team name	School	Points
1	Mr Project	Oakhill College	233.4
2	[PRIDE]	Parktown Boys	195
3	Grey High Gaming	Grey High	159
4	Pr0NHS	Northcliff High	144.8
5	WBHS/DotA	Westville Boys	135.2
6	Team Theory	Oakhill College	110
7	Northwood DOTA	Northwood High	100
8	MC DOTA	Maritzburg College	100
9	Grey High Seconds	Grey High	100

School league - Round 1 results for DotA 2.

Westville Boys' esports team.

Results for Mind Sports South Africa's Online School league for the week ending 28 July 2017 have all been processed for the esports title of DotA 2.

It is MSSA's belief that all development starts at school level where, under suitable supervision, the teams can learn to play together and improve the overall standard of play.

Three schools have moved into the top positions, being:

• Pr0NHS - Northcliff High School,
• Team Theory - Oakhill College, and
• WBHS/DotA - Westville Boys' High School.

The team that wins all its games in the Online School League shall earn High School Provincial Colours.