Hwange, TelOne share spoils
Hwange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . (1) 1 TelOne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (0) 1 HWANGE produced arguably one of their worst performances in recent memory in front of their home crowd after failing to click and in the process share the spoils with a determined 10-man TelOne in a Castle Lager Premiership football match at the Colliery yesterday.
The fact that TelOne played a whole hour with a numerical disadvantage after defender Innocent Zambezi was shown a red card by referee Maka Magare on the half hour mark for elbowing Ernest Gwitima, left a glaring reality that the coal miners never glowed throughout the contest.
Gwitima dusted himself from the incident to send TelOne goalkeeper Raphel Pitisi the wrong way to leave the drum beating home fans with glee as they now anticipated a stroll in the park in their team’s endeavour to “swith off Tel One WiFi”, especially after the much taunted roasting of Chicken Inn in their last home match.
But football has its own surprises, twists and turns as the home fans were left mesmerised as TelOne made a mockery of that setback with some purposeful and disciplined show that could even have left Hwange with an egg on their face with a defeat.
TelOne deservedly got the rewards for sheer determination in the 70th minute when David Mangesi was allowed all the time in the world to hammer the ball home from close-range after the home defence slept on duty in dealing with what looked like harmless free-kick by goalkeeper Pitisi.
From that equaliser Tel One played with their tails up as they threatened to cause an upset and the final whistle by Magare was welcomed by a section of the home fans who couldn’t stomach the nightmare unfolding in front of their eyes.
Hwange coach Nation Dube lamented his players’ attitude.
“The way we played in overall after we went ahead was worrying as we became complacent especially from our defending,” he said.
While Dube was in pain, TelOne technical team manager Joel Luphahla heaped praise on his charges.
“The red card incident hardened our resolve and it is gratifying to get a valuable point against Hwange who have been playing well of late,” said Luphahla.
Teams
Hwange: T Mvula; L Sibanda; A Chuma; G Ndlovu; N Chinyerere; T Ncube( E Nkhulungo 55min) ; F Chindungwe; S Gadzikwa( A Ndlovu 57th min); E Gwitima; G Zulu( D Maphosa 57min); N Gama.
TelOne: R Pitisi; I Zambezi; M Chigumira(J Muzokomba 64th min); T Chikore; E Zinyama; J Jam; D Mangesi; D Temwanjira; B Sibanda( T Sibanda 55th min) ; E Mandiranga( F Bushiri 75th min) ; S Phiri