Poor officiating mars derby

Sport
MATABELELAND Warriors team manager Osmond Lynx has blamed biased officiating for the draw against Old Miltonians in a Lion Lager National Rugby League match.

MATABELELAND Warriors team manager Osmond Lynx has blamed biased officiating for the draw against Old Miltonians (OMs) in a Lion Lager National Rugby League (NRL) match played during a derby played at Hartsfield Rugby Grounds on Saturday.

Report by Vitalis Moyo

Warriors had a string of decisions being called against them which saw them give up a seven-point lead as they had gone to the break leading 15-8 to draw 15-15 at the end of the 80 minutes of play.

“We feel there were a lot of bad calls made by the match officials during the match that led to OMs come-back. Most calls were biased towards our opponents and there is nothing we could do about that,” Lynx said.

OMs drew level in the dying stages of the game through speed merchant and second- half substitute Manu Ngorero who made an impressive run eluding the Warriors backline to place the ball over the line for a try, with Gorge Savada successfully taking the conversion to put the score at 15-15.

“It was a derby match and we did expect tempers to flare. We will pull up our socks heading to our return clash next week (this Saturday) and hopefully come out with a win this time around,” Lynx said.

Warriors tries came in the first half through Walter Sode and Cleopas Makotose while Brian Dube added six points off his boot. OMs coach Theo Weale said he was happy with the one point they scrapped from the game.

“We put ourselves under a lot of pressure in the first half but we managed to pick ourselves up in the second half and pick up the momentum. We introduced fresh legs in the field and that increased the tempo of our game resulting in that try by Manu Ngorero,” Weale said.

“This is a stepping stone for us having managed to get a point although we still have areas that we need to work on before next week’s reverse clash.” Weale added.

Meanwhile, Bulawayo, based outfit Western Panthers continued dropping points when they suffered their second consecutive drubbing on the road as they were massacred by the defending champions Harare Sports Club (HSC) 89-7 at Old Georgians.

The loss saw Panthers, who had a fairytale start to their league campaign, drop to fourth position on the log standings while HSC move up to third position. Zvishavane Bulls are yet to get off the mark in their league campaign as they were handed their seventh straight defeat, losing 67-8 to Old Hararians at McAdams Fields.