Fans left yearning in Rollers, Chiefs anti-climax

Mqondisi Dube | Tuesday March 3, 2015 10:15

Township Rollers were expected to craft a perfect response going  into the return leg of their CAF Champions League tie against Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday.

But at the end, the game petered out into a damp squib, deflating a bellowing National Stadium crowd.

Coach, Madinda Ndlovu –and many others within the Rollers family- thought a solid platform had been laid when they crossed back into Botswana, with a narrow 2-1 defeat.

It had been hailed as a valiant display against an intimidating Kaizer Chiefs side.

A new sense of belief permeated through the squad with all in agreement that the 2-1 deficit was a reversible margin. A perfect stage had been laid for another feather in Rollers’ cap.

The National Stadium was the stage and Rollers players, more than willing actors. But for the whole 90 minutes on Saturday, the script went horribly wrong.

In fact the Rollers players- and technical team- appeared to read from a wrong script, as it was the visitors who grabbed a solitary goal to proceed to the first round of the continental competition.

Instead, it was Rollers who needed a single goal to dump their more illustrious opponents.

From the first whistle, evidently overawed by the big occasion and the crowd, a lumbering Rollers failed to raise their match temperatures.

Ndlovu’s charges were lethargic and guilty of failing to make a match out of it.

At the end of the day, the affair, which attracted the season’s biggest crowd, turned out to be a damp squib.

A languid Rollers defence allowed Siyabonga Nkosi to seal the tie just 23 minutes in and from then on, most of the talk shifted to the classy range of cars the tie, through visiting fans, had attracted.

The cash was in the bag after tickets were sold out, but the win appeared elusive the moment Nkosi took full advantage of a defensive lapse to push the ball into the roof of the net.

Rollers fans spent the afternoon watching their heroes huff and puff with evidence scattered all over the National Stadium pitch that the day would end in misery.

Equally, Kaizer Chiefs did not provide reasons why they are highly rated with a muted response. It was a workman-like win and far from vintage from a club fondly known as the ‘Glamour Boys’. 

Their coach, Stuart Baxter, who is still to travel deeper into Africa as the competition progresses, lambasted the condition of the National Stadium pitch.

It was hardly the ending expected after a week dominated by talk of an epic encounter, which, at 2-1 hung in the balance.

At the end, the pendulum never swung, it just stuck on Chiefs’ side as it dawned on Rollers that they could not replicate Gaborone United’s 2010 heroics.

The Reds dumped Kaizer Chiefs’ arch-rivals, Orlando Pirates out of the CAF Champions League.

With Rollers out of the Champions League, their attention is now drawn to Mochudi Centre Chiefs’ seven point advantage at the top of the beMOBILE Premier League standings.  Rollers are in Maun this weekend where league debutants, Sankoyo Bush Bucks have created a fortress.

As Popa return to the domestic competition, they will discover that they are no longer second, but third.

As such, defending their title is now a task of Herculean proportion. While all focus was on the Rollers, Chiefs tie, Orapa United ruthlessly moved to second position on the league table after crushing Motlakase Power Dynamos 6-1 on Friday.  Mochudi Centre Chiefs also used the occasion  to stretch their advantage at the top to seven points over Rollers and six clear of Orapa United.

Chiefs thrashed cocky Sankoyo Bush Bucks 3-1 to stretch their lead at the top.