Cape Town - Springbok scrumhalf Francois Hougaard has won the Sport24 Performance of the Month Award for August. Hougaard was a mullet on a mission as he produced successive livewire performances at scrumhalf 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% of the 2304 votes cast on Sport24.

Hougaard held off the ‘Blade Runner’ Oscar Pistorius (20.27%), 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% 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.

Whilst Hougaard has a recognizable mullet, his coach Peter de Villiers has one very recognizable mouth which his bosses hope 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% of the votes, whilst the Bok women’s Rugby World Cup team came in second place for their dismal campaign. 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% 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!

Click HERE to vote in this month's awards