By Benjamin Nyirenda
Swallows FC managed to salvage a point when they hosted Cape Town City FC in a DSTV Premiership match played at the Dobsonville Stadium on Friday afternoon. Swallows went to this match after going through a massive shake in the technical department, their head coach was put on special leave, while assistant coach, Simo Dlala was left in charge.
Speaking after the match, coach Dladla said that while they had aimed for full three points, they will take the point that was on offer.
“It was a good game for both teams as City started very well in the first 15 to 20 minutes where they put us under pressure and could have punished us but we survived that and improved in the second half. We had a better second half compared to the first half, ” he said.
Dladla added they went a bit down when Tebogo Langerman was substituted, but Thabo Matlaba who replaced him grew confidence and helped the team. The former Richards Bay United coach added he noticed that City FC was also pleased with the point.
” Now the focus will turn to the MTN 8 semi-finals second leg encounter against the same team on Wednesday. We have to recover technically and tactically and work on the mistakes we saw from this game and improve on those mistakes so that we can have a better result in the cup game, ” Dladla concluded.
Meanwhile, Cape Town City FC bounced back from their 3-0 defeat to Stellenbonsch FC, coach Eric Tinkler said that it was a much better performance mainly defensively compared to the one they had against Stellenbonsch.
“It was very important that we got a point from Swallows playing away though I believe we had chances of even collecting three points from this game,” he said.
Tinkler said the draw is a morale booster for the team going into the MTN 8 semifinals second leg against the same team and then another league game against Orlando Pirates.