Durban - Manning Rangers registered their biggest win of the season at
Chatsworth Stadium on Friday night when they thrashed Qwa Qwa Stars
7-2 to bring the curtain down on their Castle Premier League
season.
The half-time score was 4-1 to Rangers. A torrential rain
storm soon after the restart forced referee Ian McLeod to halt the
game for nearly 10 minutes until it had passed.
The result moves Rangers back into third place on the log above
Orlando Pirates, but Pirates should have the measure of
bottom-of-the-log side Vaal Professionals on Saturday in their last game
to claim the bronze medals.
Both Rangers and Stars played out the second half with 10 men
with Liswa Nduti of Rangers collecting two yellow cards and an
automatic red while Sipho Khuse of Stars was sent off for an
innocuous tackle on Mxolisi Mchunu that barely deserved a caution.
Stars' coach Peter Nyama was most unhappy that all four
officials appointed to the game were local and voiced his
dissatisfaction at McLeod's performance.
But Rangers were by far the better team on the night and had
not goalkeeper Grant Johnson and striker Gilbert Mushangazhike both
missed spot kicks the margin of victory would have been even
higher.
The ever alert Mushangazhike scored a delightful hat-trick and
Solo Ndimande got two, giving them both a tally of 12 league goals
for the season.
Rangers' other goals were scored by Mchunu and Bradley Muir
while opportunist Bunene Ngaduane bagged both for Stars, one from a
penalty kick.
It was surprising that Nyama only replaced first choice
goalkeeper Jeremiah Mathibela 10 minutes into the second half with
the score at 6-1.
He was obviously a big part of the problem in the Stars'
defence and substitute Matthews Setholo helped to stem the flood of
goals.
Rangers' coach Gordon Igesund said he was never so happy to see
the end of a season and was looking forward to a total break from
the game.
But an announcement is expected from him soon as to which
players he will place on the transfer list and which names are at
the top of his shopping list. - Sapa