Black Leopards won without playing on Wednesday night after Platinum Stars and Jomo Cosmos played to a goalless draw at Moruleng Stadium in Rustenburg in the promotion playoffs.
Lidoda Duvha kept their place at the summit of the three-team mini-league with four points at the halfway mark. Cosmos are in second place with two points and Dikwena are at the bottom with one point.
A win for Leopards against Dikwena in Moruleng on Saturday will see the Limpopo side put one foot in the elite league.
The two men in charge of Cosmos and Stars, Jomo Sono and Roger de Sa, were fighting for more than three points on Wednesday night because where their teams will be playing next season will have an impact on their pockets.
Sono, coach and owner of Cosmos, wants to return Ezenkosi back to topflight football after two seasons in the first division. De Sa, coach and one-part of the four-man consortium that bought Dikwena, was fighting to keep Stars in the Premier Division to get a return on his investment.
Tebogo Makobela of Jomo Cosmos tackled by Sibusiso Mthethwa of Platinum Stars at Moruleng Stadium, Rustenburg on Wednesday night. Photo: Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix
Dikwena, however, didn’t play like a team that has been given a second chance after finishing the Absa Premiership season at the bottom.
But they avoided automatic relegation, with the axe falling over Ajax Cape Town in dramatic fashion as the Cape side lost the arbitration case on the eligibility of Tendai Ndoro, who had already played for two teams this season before turning up for the Urban Warriors.
Stars excitedly replaced Ajax in the playoff,s but this competition has confirmed that Dikwena deserve to be relegated to the first division. They have lacked aggression and a strong fighting spirit.
Their “promotion” to fight in the playoffs now seems like denying the inevitable, with Cosmos and Leopards in better positions than them to become the 16th team in the Premier Division for the 2018/19 season.