Birds, Bucs share spoils

Following a loss to Sekhukhune United, Orlando Pirates were expected to bounce back to winning ways against Moroka Swallows, but it wasn’t to be as they were held to a 1-1 draw by the Dube Birds at the Dobsonville Stadium last night.

Having come under fire for resting the Bafana contingent of Tapelo Xoki, Nkosinathi Sibisi, Thabang Monare and Patrick Maswanganyi for the game against Sekhukhune, coach Jose Riveiro decided to start with three of them against Swallows.

It was Swallows who almost had a perfect start to the game when Sipho Chaine’s poor clearance was intercepted by Jacob Everson, who crossed the ball, but Pirates were saved by the crossbar in the first minute of the match.

The near miss seemed to take the Buccaneers by surprise and they almost took the lead in the 21st minute when Kabelo Dlamini’s near perfect cross found Tshegofatso Mabasa inside the Swallows box, but his header went narrowly wide of goal.

Swallows took the lead six minutes later when Chaine miscued the ball following a back pass.

This time the goalkeeper was not lucky as Lindokuhle Mtshali pounced on the ball and beat him with a low shot.

Mabasa almost found the equaliser for the Buccaneers a few minutes before the break, but his header went narrowly wide of goals with Akpeyi beaten.

Riveiro must have said something to his charges at the break because they immediately took the game to Swallows and they were rewarded with a goal in the 53rd minute when Maswanganyi tapped in a cross from Thabiso Lebitso.

Mofokeng wasted a chance to put Pirates in the lead in the 77nd minute when he found himself unmarked inside the box, but shot over the crossbar from a few metres out.

Pirates were reduced to 10 men in the dying minutes of the match when Sibisi was given his marching orders for using abusive language towards the referee.