Birds’ tails up as they plot rare win over Pirates

A MOROKA Swallows victory over Orlando Pirates is as rare as a day without load shedding in South Africa. You have to go back to August 2021 to find a win for the Dube Birds over their Soweto adversaries.

That success was so long ago that they were still called Swallows FC back then – so long ago that their current coach, Musa Nyatama, was still a player.

As they prepare to host the Buccaneers in a Premiership clash at the Dobsonville Stadium tonight, Nyatama will have to call on the experience of that glorious afternoon to inspire his team to maximum points.

Back then, Ruzaigh Gamaldien was the Swallows hero with a firsthalf brace – one a free kick and the other a goal from range gifted following a comical error by Pirates goalkeeper Richard Ofori – to see the Birds grabbing a 2-1 MTN8 quarter-final win. The historical struggle to beat Pirates aside, Swallows will go into the match with their tails up having ended a wretched winless run of 13 matches at the weekend. Nyatama’s men had last won a match back in November before the weekend’s last- minute 1-0 victory over Premiership bottom dwellers Cape Town Spurs.

That tonight’s opponents were 2-1 losers at Sekhukhune United should add to the Birds’ confidence that they can collect a further three points to edge much closer to being assured of top-flight survival with eight matches to go. Nyatama knows, however, that Pirates will be dangerous – just like animals are when wounded.

“We have a difficult match ahead against Pirates,” he said in his postmatch media conference at Spurs.

“They lost to Sekhkhune and they will come at us, wanting maximum points. But we are playing at home and we should be doing well.”

They should be but they have not, Swallows having failed to win five of their matches in their own backyard since they beat TS Galaxy 1-0 in that last victory in November.

The win at Spurs should be a game-changer, though, and while pleased with how his team applied themselves, Nyatama plans to ring some changes to his starting line-up.