Smiso Msomi
The relegation battle in the DStv Premiership continues to spring surprises, with three teams fighting to retain their top-flight status.
Bottom-placed Cape Town Spurs, Richards Bay and, by a close call, Moroka Swallows, are seemingly the three teams battling for the multimillion-rand chance to play elite division football again next season.
While the Urban Warriors were reviving their last hopes of at least making the promotion/relegation play-offs, the Dube Birds were falling from the sky after a collision with TS Galaxy in Mpumalanga. What looked straightforward at the turn of the year has now seen Swallows allow themselves to be drawn into the relegation conversation.
Head coach Musa Nyatama has seen his team win just one of their nine league games this year, with the number of goal conceded at the heart of their problems. Goalkeeper Daniel Akpeyi has watched his net bulge 12 times in those nine games and watched his teammates score just seven at the opposite end.
While Swallows may be the outsiders and favourites to survive in this race, they’ll need to collect at least six to seven points from their last five games.
Their final run includes matches against Top 8-chasing Chippa United and Cape Town City, as well as CAF football hopefuls Stellenbosch and SuperSport United, before ending the campaign with a home clash against Royal AM.
Urban Warriors head coach Ernst Midddendorp threw on 19-year-old Azola Jakalashe against the Natal Rich Boyz, a decision that turned out to be a magical one as the youngster scored his first professional goal to help Spurs get a win.
The German tactician will need more strokes of genius and magic if his team is to have any chance of surviving the drop. The 65-year-old expressed the importance of letting the high spirits run through his camp for the final stretch of the season having defeated a direct rival.
“Although if you lose or (are) not winning four or five games in a row, you’re very happy to have some excitement,” he said after their match with Richards Bay.
“We definitely have enough space to get more excitement into this. No, I definitely will not push down the excitement. I think it’s very crucial and it’s definitely giving us, in terms of the confidence level, something,” he added.
Richards Bay, on the other hand, will have to pick up the pieces after yet another devastating blow to their hopes of avoiding the play-offs. The KwaZulu-Natal-based outfit will face AmaZulu today at the same time Spurs play Polokwane City, while Swallows face Chippa tomorrow.