Johannesburg - It was not a classic, was it? Definitely not the kind of match we would be talking about for years to come. Not that those associated with Kaizer Chiefs would care.
They got the better of their archrivals once again, after all – Amakhosi completing a league double over the Buccaneers after beating them by the same scoreline in the first round. And do not tell them that it was a fortuitous goal, coming as it did via Olisa Ndah’s freak own goal. They all count, don’t they?
But for a long time on Saturday, the Soweto Derby fell short of its billing as the country’s premier entertainment event. The football purists will no doubt argue that at the game’s highest level, you should always expect a chess-like encounter, with each side carefully calculating their moves instead of going gung-ho lest they get punished.
Yet on a very hot summer’s afternoon such as Saturday’s, when you switch on your television - as I did - to watch South Africa’s biggest sides take each other on, you expect nothing less than a full-on no-holds barred battle, right?
Granted there were some battles. There was that moment when the compact Phillip Ndlondlo inconceivably attempted to get into a fight with the man giant that is Sifiso Hlanthi to get me edging closer to the screen.
But no sooner had the Pirates midfielder raised his voice at the Amakhosi than he was receiving a talking down to that would have passed for the school principal chastising a naughty boy as Hlanti wagged his finger at Ndlondlo. That the referee didn’t do much about that little tussle told the story.
He knew though that he had to intervene when Miguel TImm and Keagan Dolly had their own handbags throwing episode, just before halftime as he booked both players.
That mini scuffle sent heartbeats rising at the end of a first half characterised by a predictable pattern of play that saw Pirates doing most of the attacking and Chiefs waiting to catch them on the counter using the speed of Ashley Du Preez.
As they walked towards the tunnel, the two sets of players displayed the passion that got one remembering derbies of old as they exchanged heated words with some officials rushing to ensure they were separated.
But it was a pity that passion did not really overflow into their play to spark up a fiercely contested derby.
The little passion that seemed to be there was used wrongly with Chiefs actually lucky to have finished the match with a full complement of players because Christian Saile should have been sent off for a reckless, two-footed follow through tackle on Pirates captain Innocent Maela just before the half hour mark.
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The Bucs skipper was not so lucky though on the hour mark when he hacked Saile - perhaps as retaliation for the earlier incident?
He was sent off and the advantage swung Chiefs’ way although Amakhosi struggled to make their numerical advantage count, leaving the club’s el-supremo Kaizer Motaung to look somewhat forlorn at proceedings as he sat in the VIP suite flanked by his two sons Kaizer Junior and Bobby.
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One was already imagining how the old Motaung senior would be first in the dressing room to remind the players that it was his name that would be pasted all over the following day’s papers, and that he did not take kindly to them pussy-footing about.
They were lucky that Idah helped them out late in the game, the Nigerian player inconceivably heading an innocuous looking shot by Edmilson Dove backwards and over the advancing Sipho Chaine for the only goal of a match whose recording we are highly unlikely to be rushing for.
IOL Sport
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