Mighty Bulls exposed

The Mighty Bulls, who had done well to snatch a 1-1 draw in the first meeting away in Polokwane, failed to build on the promising start and they fell 2-0 in the second leg at Rufaro.
In the end, Joey Antipas’ men — league champions in 2010 — tumbled out at the first hurdle after an embarrassing 3-1 aggregate defeat to a team that is fighting relegation back home.
And for the second year running, the Mighty Bulls, who had a similar chance when they played Asec Mimosa of Ivory Coast in a one-off Champions League qualifying match last season, conspired to disappoint in front of their fans in Caf inter-club competitions.
“It’s disappointing to be out of the competition,” said Antipas. “We just did not get our act together. The fact that we were playing at home should have been a great advantage but we did not make use of it.”
Although they played the ball well in the early stages, Motor Action lost their plot after conceding shortly before the half-time break.
It meant they needed two goals in the second half to progress but they further crumbled when Thabo Mongalo completed his brace in the 53rd minute.
Generally, the Mighty Bulls were not impressive all-round, with a poor defence and lacking the cutting edge upfront.
The second goal, which came early in the second half, all but sealed the Mighty Bulls’ fate as it meant that they now needed to win the game by scoring three goals in the last 40 minutes of the match.
The Mighty Bulls, however, had their moments in the Leopards’ half but their strikers Ismael Lawe and Ngoni Maviri could not get clear-cut chances.
“We have almost a new side for this season and it will take some time to get these guys going. We had good patterns of play but the final touch was missing,” said Antipas.
Motor Action gave eight starting places to new players and questions linger why the technical team decided to start with a host of new acquisitions at the expense of their experienced players like Masimba Mambare, Thambani Masuku, Godfrey Moyo and Gift Phiri who were on the bench.
Passmore Bernard did well on the rightback and, together with Jonathan Chitereki, supported the attack from the wings.
Leopards’ assistant coach Abel Makhubele admitted they were under pressure but said they took advantage of Motor Action’s shortcomings.
Leopards could even afford the luxury of missing some good chances with Kingstone Nkhatha failing three times in good positions.
“Motor Action play as a team but we realised that their defence was shaky and jittery at times so we told the boys to play long balls into their box.
“We stuck to our plan and that is why we used two big strikers,” said Makhubele.