By Chris Totobela
Football lovers made their way to Rhodes University’s King Field last Saturday to witness another double header of exciting duels. In the first game, Young Eagles took on City Pirates in a pulsating local derby, which was won by Pirates who scored a goal in each half to take home maximum points and eased their relegation woes.
In the main game of the day, leading local side Maru FC locked horns with one of their fierce rivals and Alicedale-based Friendly City. The home side came to this much-anticipated encounter on the back of three consecutive defeats.
The game started at a blistering pace, as was expected and the home side settled quicker and started putting more pressure on their opponents. Maru’s lethal marksman and skipper, Vuyani Skeyi, had two glorious chances to put his side on the scoresheet but shot narrowly wide and over the crossbar, respectively. The home side continued to pile on the pressure and once again missed two good headers. The visitors finally succumbed to pressure in the 43rd minute when Ayabonga Boloti rose above everyone to powerfully head home the opener. Maru took their lead to the halftime break.
The visitors came out firing on all cylinders in the second half and caught the home side’s defence napping at times but failed to capitalise. Maru tamed the visitors with a well-taken goal by Aluve Ntezo before their top marksman, the ever-green Vuyani Skeyi, took the wind off the visitors’ sails with one of his trade-mark goals – rounding off the keeper and passing the ball into an open net.
Friendly City made some substitutions, including their goalminder, to try and minimize the damage while Maru made substitutions of their own that made an immediate impact in the game. Lindokuhle Mdoko and Olwethu Khuhlani put the final nail in City’s coffin, to the delight of the home crowd, who cheered every goal.
The referee blew the final whistle, to the relief of the visitors, as the home side walked away 5-0 winners. Maru FC’s head coach, Siyabonga Dumiso was very happy with his charges’ performance. “We had to grind out the result in this game. We have been dominating possession in all our games, but luck has not been on our side. Credit to our boys for showing character today, especially coming from three consecutive losses. We take the three points and move on. We are working on our problems like not converting the clear chances that we are creating and on the loss of concentration at critical moments of the game,” Dumiso explained.
This was an excellent performance by the home side as they outclassed their opponents and played them off the park.
