BANYANA READY FOR FINAL ROUND AFTER WIN

BANYANA Banyana are now two games away from qualifying for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, following their 2-0 aggregate victory over Kenya yesterday afternoon.

The South African women’s team had only managed a narrow 1-0 win at Dobsonville Stadium, Soweto, just over a fortnight ago and were looking for a strong performance to progress past the third round of the qualification phase.

It was not a pretty start, with Lebogang Ramalepe, Banyana’s goal scorer in the first leg, forced off the pitch in the 10th minute and replaced by Rhoda Mulaudzi.

Mulaudzi proved a more than capable substitute when she broke the deadlock 15 minutes after being introduced by coach Vera Pauw to give her side an aggregate 2-0 lead.

Even though they were away from home and only taking a nar- row advantage away with them to Kenya, Banyana were solid in defence and kept the opposition at bay throughout the 90 minutes at the Kenyatta Stadium.

Again, it was difficult for the South Africans to penetrate the Kenyan defence like it was the case in the first leg.

“In the first game Kenya’s game plan was to come here and not to concede many goals.

“They parked the bus so that when the second leg comes they can capitalise. We have worked around their game plan and we will see how it goes,” Banyana key player Refiloe Jane said last week as they prepared for the game.

Jane promised that they would work hard to realise their goal of playing at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio.

The South Africans will face either Nigeria, 2014 Women’s World Cup participants, or Equatorial Guinea in the final round of qualification in October.