Marumo Gallants staged an impressive comeback to defeat Saint Eloi Lupopo 3-2 and secured top spot in their CAF Confederation Cup group on Sunday evening.
Marumo Gallants booked their spot in the CAF Confederation Cup group stage play-offs with a 4-1 aggregate win over Elgeco Plus following a 1-0 win in the second leg on Saturday afternoon.
Undoubtedly, after their history-making triumph over Chippa United in the Nedbank Cup final, Tshakhuma Tsha Madzivhandila (TTM) are still in honeymoon mode. You can’t blame them for it either, theirs is a remarkable story of turning things around.
However, they will have to shelve some of those positive emotions momentarily with relegation threatening to rain on their parade. As the team’s head coach Dylan Kerr pointed out after the win on Saturday.
“It’s a great achievement for TTM after the season that they’ve had. The players have been through so many ups and downs, mainly downs, but today they thoroughly deserved it,” said Kerr, who has been working with Mpho Maleka and David Mathebula to ensure the turnaround.
The Beautiful Birds were able to level matters through Sipho Sibiya after the Vhadau Vha Damani defence was exposed on the stroke of half-time.
Joseph Mhlongo set-up Sibiya, who headed past Washington Arubi to make it 1-1 heading into the half-time break - scoring his second goal of the campaign in the process.
It took just seven minutes for the hosts to restore their lead through Rhulani Manzini, who ended his six-match goal drought.
Mogakolodi Ngele was the provider as the Botswana international s cross was headed home by Manzini to make it 2-1 to Tshakhuma.
The goal did not deter the Beautiful Birds as they launched attacks and they managed to restore parity through Vuyo Mere.