Lorch finds his groove very quickly

Thembinkosi Lorch’s influence in the Orlando Pirates line-up was very noticeable in their Nedbank Cup tie against All Stars at the Wits Football Stadium on Saturday.

The experienced attacker came on as a second-half substitute to help the team secure a 2-0 victory.

Pirates were struggling to break the stubborn All Stars defence down, leaving the teams heading into the break goalless and still gave the Motsepe Foundation Championship (MFC) side a glimmer of hope of upsetting the Soweto giants.

But, the introduction of Lorch at the start of the second period was all that Bucs coach Jose Riveiro needed to avoid any threat of the embarrassment of being knocked out of the Ke Yona Cup by a lower division team.

Lorch (pictured), who has been out since late August due to an injury, managed to bring some life to the Pirates team and was involved in the first goal scored by Monnapule Saleng.

He then wrapped up the tie by scoring the second goal. But, he admitted that bouncing back from the lengthy injury was not easy.

“I think I had about five months of not playing football. I would like to thank my family for the support, the technical team and the physio’s for pushing me, because it was not easy,” said Lorch.

“Sitting on the bench helped me a lot. I was busy analysing the game and I saw that All Stars were running all over. The coach told me that I must just find spaces. If you check the first goal, I had space and passed the ball to (Terrence) Dzvukamanja, who ended up passing it to (Monnapule) Saleng.”

The 29-year-old added that he hoped the goal would help boost his morale and thanked everyone who had been supporting him while healing from the injury.