CAPE TOWN Spurs are on the verge of seeing their dreamy first season back in the top flight end in heartbreak after the results of matchday 26 all but sealed their fate.
The bottom-placed Urban Warriors suffered a huge blow to their aspirations of achieving the greatest comeback story in South African football history as they lost at home to Polokwane City on Tuesday.
That result, coupled with another in the heart of uMlazi where Richards Bay toppled AmaZulu, saw Spurs drop eight points off the 15th-placed Natal Rich Boyz.
In essence, Richards Bay will now need to collect four points in their remaining four games this season to ensure that they don’t suffer automatic relegation and leave that fate to Spurs.
Following a morale-boosting win over Richards Bay last Friday, the expectation was for Spurs to push on in their final five games, however, that pressure seems to have got to them, thus handing Rise and Shine the impetus to go on and claim victory.
For Bay, their result has not only opened a sizeable gap between themselves and Spurs but has also offered them an opportunity to think bigger in the way of avoiding the promotion/relegation play-offs as well.
The KwaZulu-Natal-based outfit is now within touching distance of a Swallows side struggling for wins at the moment.
The Dube Birds have won just one of their past five matches, drawing two and losing the other two.
The Natal Rich Boyz’s assistant coach, Ronnie Gabriel, who filled in for head coach Vusumuzi Vilakazi who was absent on the day, spoke to the media after seeing his side come back from a goal down to claim victory.
He admitted that he and his team had not planned on the possibility of trying to pursue Swallows above them as they placed more concern on trying to avoid being leapfrogged by Spurs.
Richards Bay will face Polokwane City, Orlando Pirates, Cape Town City and Stellenbosch in their last four games of the campaign
“We didn’t think so far ahead, I must be very honest with you. We were thinking about opening up a gap against Cape Town Spurs. We had decided that we’re taking the 15th position and we’re going to the play-offs but if we can get a few more good results and the opportunity presents itself, why not? But coming into today’s (Tuesday’s) game we only had our heads fixed on Cape Town Spurs,” he admitted.
“We have to be more consistent. If you look at how the team started the season, there was a problem with consistency so we’re stressing that we (need to) bring the same performances week in and week out.”