MASHWAMA IS RIGHT!

My dearest readers ...

As I sat with my hands on my chin at the Bidvest Stadium on a warm Summer Friday evening after the ‘Students’ had just finished having a buffalo for supper, I could not help but conclude that our football is literally down in the dumps. My mind raced back to the first leg tie on September 14 at Mavuso Sports Centre when Young Buffaloes scrapped through a Fanelo ‘Order’ Mamba goal to win by a solitary goal. I remembered that Gavin Hunt’s charges had missed a catalogue of chances and the slender win was not a true reflection of the game.

As Buffaloes fell apart like the biblical walls of Jericho at the modest venue in a 3-0 bashing on Friday night, that didn’t tell half the incredible story of the ABSA premiership side’s dominance. No doubt the chickens had come home to roost. Hesitant goalkeeping; no tactical coherence; a powder-puff striking force – with striker Phiwa Dlamini looking like a sheep ready for a spit braai – and a defence that had more holes than Swiss cheese, Young Buffaloes looked like lambs to the slaughter.

Contest

By the half-hour mark, the game was over as a contest. Then speaking to one long-serving football and former Mbabane Highlanders stalwart, Nichodemus ‘Ace’ Mashwama, who opined that the game was a true reflection that our Premier League is not strong enough. I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this column, the State-of-the-Nation-Sports-Address (SONSA), had made this observation last week after Sihlangu Semnikati went down 0-1 to Zambia’s Chipolopolo in the 2020 CHAN qualifier. Mashwama, needless to say, is right. He hit the nail on the head. Young Buffaloes, reigning Ingwenyama Cup champions and three successive times EswatiniBank Cup kings, had no equals last season.

We all remember how they strung Highlanders as if they were Toni Braxton’s Spanish guitar in the Ingwenyama Cup final in a 4-1 pasting, which remains one of the most one-sided Cup finals since Denver Sundowns were thrashed by a ruthless Green Mamba 5-1 in the inaugural EswatiniBank Cup on March 30, 2004. 

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