ASAKHULILE AMATHOLE EZINYATHI!

My dearest readers.. Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive but what they conceal is vital. That’s not me saying it but one Aaron Levenstein and he might as well have had the 2019 Ingwenyama Cup final in mind. Thanks to my concomitant ability to own a DStv explora, I was able to watch the game at the stadium and still got to ‘catch up’ later in the evening where the first half statistics alone gave an indication that the final scoreline of Buffaloes annihilating Highlanders 4-1 was not a surprise. In fact it didn’t tell half the incredible story.

In the first half, Highlanders had one shot on target, which was the scored penalty; Buffaloes had six on target including the goal. Highlanders had 52 per cent ball possession to Buffaloes 48 per cent but shots off target, free kicks all belonged to the army side who dominated proceedings even more in the decisive second half in which they peppered the leaky-as-sieve Highlanders defence with cash-in-transit-heist-like transitional play. It felt like seeing the take-off of a stolen VW GTi 7R as Buffaloes surged forward in eye-watering counter-attacks spearheaded by my ‘Player of the Series’, the mercurial Sandile Gamedze, ‘Man of the match’ Mpendulo ‘Mbethe’ Dlamini and the incisive off-the-ball runs of Phiwa Dlamini.

Like a bikini, which is short enough to arouse interest while long enough too, to cover the subject, Buffaloes dominance of this Cup final is best reflected in the statistical assessment, which shows 65 per cent ball possession in the second half and six shots on target in which they scored three more goals. I told my colleagues whom I was seated with almost on the touchline due to the lack of seats owing to the overflowing crowd, that Buffaloes goalkeeper, Nhlanhla Gwebu might well have been given a John Grisham novel, ‘The Whistler’ to read as he was even whistling to kill the boredom as he sauntered around his 18-area box.

Such was Buffaloes, dominance that even when Phiwa’s headed goal was controversially not awarded, they still surged ahead exposing a timid Highlanders tactically, technically and otherwise. The super-fit Buffaloes side outfoxed, outsmarted and out-thought the Saul-less Chamunika coached side that looked out of sorts for a Cup final of this magnitude.

It was the worst performance by a Highlanders side in a Cup final since Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati’s team was whipped 3-1 by a Lloyd Mtasa-coached Green Mamba on April fool’s day in the EswatiniBank Cup in 2012. Like ‘Koki’, who bizarrely left the then pivotal midfielder Hloniphani Ndebele on the bench, Chamunika also left the industrious Menzi Sithole on the bench on Sunday. With no one to do the dirty work in the belly of the park and Vusumuzi Zungu backpedalling, Buffaloes Wandile ‘Skosh’ Mazibuko had a field day. With the midfield battle lost, there was no way Highlanders were going to penetrate the water-tight Buffaloes defence with lone striker Thabiso Mokenkoane, who ended up having to drop deeper to try and conjure up play without success as the army side pressed higher. Like hungry monkeys on an unguarded maize field, Buffaloes harangued and harassed Highlanders’ defence, which had more holes than Swiss cheese, all day long.

Maybe, at this point, it is fair to say, we often tend to not say the blindingly obvious, which is that Buffaloes has better quality than Highlanders. Add the fact that they have not been beaten in any domestic competition since losing 2-1 to Royal Leopard in a league match on November 3, 2018. They have now gone on a 19-game unbeaten run in all domestic competitions. That, by any of the country’s two official languages, is SCARY. Tactical indecisions on Chamunika’s part, Highlanders were schizophrenic, Buffaloes were rampant. Highlanders were physically weak; the army side were like raging buffaloes on steroids.

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