Orlando Pirates were made to sweat blood for their slender 1-0 victory by a gutsy Orbit College FC outfit at the Orlando Stadium on Tuesday night. The Buccaneers are slowly but surely scaling up the Betway Premiership log table after a terrible start to the new season.
After two loses in their opening matches, Pirates seem to have regrouped and are climbing up the log table with every match and every win. They are now occupying seventh spot on the league from a total of six points.
New kids on the block Orbit will be proud of the fight they put up against Bucs in front of an intimidating and partisan crowd in Soweto. They did not show Pirates any respect and pushed them back throughout the 90 minutes but experience prevailed, and Bucs grabbed all the three points at the end.
The Bucs website reported that their team emerged from a bruising encounter over the weekend, where they held their nerve during the penalty shootout to book their spot in the MTN8 final for the fourth year running. This is after fighting back to force a stalemate against Mamelodi Sundowns at Lucas Moripe Stadium, with the highly-entertaining tie finishing with a 2-2 aggregate score after 180 minutes of action.
On Tuesday night, Pirates started with more authority and were in control in the opening stages. By the 10th minute, they had already caused a few anxious moments for the visitors when Patrick “Tito” Maswanganye fired straight at the College goalkeeper from an Oswin Appollis pass.
One of the match’s talking points was the absence of Pirates star Monnapule Saleng who has been loaned out to the North-West outfit. However, Bucs inserted a clause that their disgruntled star will not feature when the two clubs face each other. It would have been interesting to see how he would have fared against his mother club in a competitive game, but the fans were denied that opportunity.
But despite Saleng’s absence, Orbit applied themselves well and they were not overawed by the big occasion. In fact, they staged an impressive fight and frustrated the Buccaneers rearguard in the first stanza. Towards the halftime, they troubled Bucs and threatened to score after wave and wave of dangerous attacks that had Sipho Chaine in all sorts of trouble.
The match went into the halftime break still deadlocked. Pirates coach Abdeslam Ouaddou made a tactical change when he introduced the trio of Thalenthe Mbatha, Sipho Mbule and Nkosikhona Ndaba for the tired Abdoulaye Mariko, Sihle Nduli and Deon Hotto during halftime recess.
The changes added some spark into the Bucs attack, and they opened the scoring with a peach of a goal from Lebone Seema just before the hour mark. The youngster collected a loose clearance outside penalty box and unleashed a volley that landed in the top corner and electrocuted the entire grandstand. The celebrations were palpable, and Pirates held on for dear life. The referee’s final whistle was met by jubilation from the coach, his players and the Bucs die-hard supporters.
