Mangwiro in winning start

HARARE City gave returning coach Taurai Mangwiro a perfect homecoming when they gunned down Cranborne Bullets in a Castle Lager Premier Soccer League tie at the National Sports Stadium yesterday.

Mangwiro left the Sunshine Boys five years ago to join Triangle United.

But after his stint in Chiredzi, he has returned to the capital, and his charges welcomed him with a convincing win.

Harare City got their opening goal from Wilfred Muvirimi off a sixth-minute header, before Emmanuel Mandirenga added a second after 27 minutes following a good counter-attack.

Cranborne Bullets pulled one back via Everson Feremba’s effort from the penalty spot in the 63rd minute.

Tatenda Tumba ensured Harare City of a comfortable win when he got onto the score sheet in the 75th minute.

Mangwiro said he drew his satisfaction from the improvement he had noticed in his team. “It should help to settle a lot of nerves. The team was showing a lot of improvement and we deserved the victory.

“We should have killed the game as a contest in the first half since we were the dominant team.

“We had to bring the substitutes to give us an extra goal and well done to the boys.

“We were making a few elementary mistakes, obviously with something in our bag, and expecting the team to protect our lead,’’ Mangwiro said.

He immediately turned his focus to their next assignment against champions FC Platinum. “Going into the next match, we are up against the champions, obviously a tricky encounter against FC Platinum, and we will be playing them away, but we needed this kind of victory; it will help us with our confidence.”

Cranborne coach Nesbert “Yabo’’ Saruchera was unhappy for coming out of the contest empty-handed.

“It’s like we were looking for three points but we have got so many injuries in the camp, especially the back four.

“We used a makeshift defence, so it was not easy for us, but we are fighting hard to make sure in our next encounter we will be able to collect three points.

“We had forced early substitutes due to injuries. We wanted to use them maybe towards the end of the game but ended up using them in the first half.

“We can’t cry over it because injuries are part of the game.

“We are just hoping that injured defenders will be back so that we can use our full squad,” he said.