Orlando Pirates ended a four-year drought without a Premier League win against bitter rivals Kaizer Chiefs with a harvest of early goals in the 2-0 drubbing of the Amakhosi at a sweltering Mmabatho Stadium on
Saturday afternoon.
And the scoreline, which came about as a result of masterly headed goals from Gilbert Mushangazhike and Lucas Thwala in the 21st and 31st minutes, provided scant evidence of the Buccaneers’ superiority in a one-sided mauling.
In the opening period alone, Pirates had six dangerous, on-target scoring attempts, while a Chiefs’ line-up, who seemed to be waiting for something to happen instead of going out and making it happen, failed to be on target even once.
The Buccaneers can take unstinting satisfaction from their performance on Saturday, playing with aggressive intent on attack and fearless determination on defence.
Although they fell back on safety-first defence for 20 minutes after the interval, Pirates were back to dominate the closing stages of the match in which Chiefs had no answers for their down-staging after three successive victories.
And a dismal Chiefs were lucky not to finish the game with 10 men when Jonathan Quartay committed a 68th minute foul that was close to warranting a sending off.
But the Ghanaian international defender had received a yellow card earlier for an equally dangerous tackle and referee Jerome Damon was
shamed by not flashing a red card.
It was a hectic afternoon for Chiefs’ Bafana goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, who could only watch one 25m Teko Modise piledriver strike the post and looked bothered and bewildered in spite of making several timely saves.
Pirates had the youthful Senzo Meyiwa back in goal for the injured, out-of-touch Moeneeb Josephs and while he had only sporadic saves to make, he performed faultlessly in front of a tight defence and gave notice he will not easily surrender his place in the Buccaneers’ line-up. – Sapa