15 Jan 2018

 - As the BTC Premiership returned to action after the festive break, Union Flamengo Santos failed to shed old skin in their first game as they continued to struggle, succumbing to rookies, Sharps Shooting Stars at the Molepolole Sports Complex on Friday.
In a game played under the watchful eye of a handful of supporters from both teams, Santos failed to tick and fell to a solitary goal from towering defender, Ronny Leagetse who nodded home from a freekick.
Santos gaffer, Innocent Ranku lamented poor preparations over the break, saying that lack of match fitness as a result, led to a luckster performance by his boys.
“We didn’t have even a single friendly game over the festive break to gauge ourselves. We only had four days of preparations and considering that, the performance was not that bad,” he said.
The former national team winger indicated that their main undoing was conceding a lot of unnecessary freekicks around their box, which they then failed to deal with.
“One of such freekicks ended in a goal, but in the second half we were a much improved team as we had nothing to defend as we were trailing.
This enabled us to bring in an additional striker to intensify our attack,” he said.
Ranku said however, that despite improvement in attack, his players were let down by poor decision making in and around the box despite creating a reasonable number of scoring chances.
One such a chance was a penalty that Santos won after Sharps goal hero, Leagetse nearly turned a villain after bringing down Mpho Gaegopolwe in the box with eight minutes to go, but veteran shot-stopper, Raphael Nthwane easily tamed the resultant spot kick by skipper, Tlamelo Abueng.
The winning coach, Mompoloki Same of Sharps indicated that their win against Santos was well planned and fought for.
He said the result was both a motivation and a challenge for his boys to strive for a top six position.
He said his intention was to get a few experienced defenders and a goal poacher if they were to be competent in the second round. “We create enough chances, but then we fail to convert, which was the reason we needed an experienced striker,” he said.
The result leaves Santos still rooted at the second spot from the basement, only ahead of Gilport Lions, who still have four games in hand. ENDS