Polokwane – It was a predictable stalemate at the Peter Mokaba Stadium on Tuesday night when Polokwane City and Orlando Pirates played to a sterile goalless draw in their Absa Premiership match.
Both teams have played five games and won only one this season and judging from the stilted performances from both teams it is going to take something special for them to make inroads into the top half of the league even though City could have won it with the last kick of the match.
The opening exchanges were even as both teams kept it tight in the midfield with chances very rare. One of these came when the towering 1.9 metre Polokwane forward Muzikayafane Ngidi blasted high over the crossbar after some clever inter-play from his team-mates in the 14th minute.
Minutes later Pirates' Kermit Erasmus make a great run down the inside left channel, went past the goalkeeper but his brilliant pass across the goalmouth from the byeline came to nothing with no Bucs players in the penalty area to finish it off.
The rest of the first half was a somewhat tepid affair with both teams showing an alarming lack of class when it came to the final pass.
Inevitably both attacks had little success and at the end of 45 minutes Pirates had the unenviable statistic of not having one shot on target with Polokwane goalkeeper George Chigova having an easy first half except for a couple of interceptions.
Pirates suffered a blow in the 59th minute when Oupa Manyisa went into a tackle and sprained his left ankle and collapsed to the turf in agony. He was stretchered off the field and replaced by Menzi Masuka.
Pirates then increased the intensity and pressed forward and in the 76th minute Chigova was called into action when he had to dive low to make a good save from a hard-hit shot from Mpho Makola. The last 10 minutes were probably the liveliest patch of play but in truth this was a poor advertisement for the PSL standards. - ANA