/ 13 August 2006

Smooth landing for Chiefs in SAA Supa8

It seemed more like a controlled and clinical sparring session than the blood-and-thunder of a bruising 12-rounder as Kaizer Chiefs beat Lamontville Golden Arrows 2-0 at FNB Stadium on Saturday afternoon and negotiated a comfortable landing to the semifinals of the SAA Supa8 competition.

Amakhosi produced one of their best-engineered goals in a long time in only the fourth minute as perceptive inter-passing from David Mathebula and Louis Agyemang provided the opening for Siyabonga Nkosi’s controlled left-footed shot into the roof of the net.

And any chance of Arrows’ neat, short-passing game manoeuvring them back into contention seemed to evaporate in the 55th minute when goalkeeper Davies Phiri conceded a penalty after upending Nkosi, received his second yellow card of the game and was summarily sent off the pitch.

David Obua scored Chiefs’ second goal from the resultant penalty and while Arrows, to their credit, maintained a studious, constructive approach with 10 men it was always a forlorn proposition for the Durban team to make up the deficit.

Indeed, Chiefs should have increased their lead when the nippy Mathebula missed gilt-edged opportunities in the 62nd and 67th minutes.

For all this, substitute Alton Meiring was unlucky not to score in the 74th minute for Arrows when he astutely guided the ball into the net from close-range — only to be ruled a matter of centimetres off-side.

A crowd of barely 10 000 at the cavernous FNB Stadium had the effect of injecting a minimum of atmosphere into the proceedings and even the Amakhosi diehards were unable to inject any degree of tension into the somewhat tame proceedings.

And on a sunny, but sporadically gusty, afternoon there was hardly a hint that the winds of change would blow for the unseeded Arrows to cause an upset. — Sapa