Young Stars continue to cruise in Alex league
JOBURG - Norwood Young Stars are determined to runaway with the Alex league following another triumph over Agent Zero.
Runaway log pace setters Norwood Young Stars continue to cruise in the Alexandra Northrand Local Football Association Promotional League after an emphatic 3–0 win against Agent Zero at the dilapidated Alexandra Stadium.
This win took their tally of points at the summit to 49 from 18 games in which they have only been beaten once and drew one game in a league where their nearest rivals, DRA Peacemakers, have amassed 38 points with two games in hand.
Young Stars, better known in Alex as the Orange Machine, started the game with a clear intention to continue where they had left off in their previous game in which they hammered Chariot of Fire 4–0. They struggled a bit up front in the first half because of the absence of their ace striker, Osi Miniru, who is still away in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, on trials with an unnamed ABC Motsepe League side.
Despite all the possession and interceptions of the ball in the middle of the park, the Orange Machine could not penetrate the tight defence of a depleted squad of Agent Zero marshalled by lanky defender, Given Ledwaba. But just before the referee could blow for half time, tall striker Amos Layode opened the scoring with a powerful grass cutter shot and the Orange Machine went into the break leading 1–0.
Layode was at it again in the 65th minute with yet another powerful shot that rattled the back of the net to grab his brace of goals in the match which was largely a one-sided affair.
Agent Zero never posed any sort of threat to the boys in orange and their keeper, Abimbola Tunde, was like a tourist on holiday in the smelly and rubbish-filled Alexandra.
In the 66th minute, Layode could have grabbed his hat-trick with Agent Zero coach and stand-in keeper, Eddie Shai at his mercy, but shot wide of the target. The final nail in the Agent Zero coffin was hammered in in the 80th minute by the enterprising Solomon Ozoji.
It was one of the most well-handled and cleanest of matches in which the referee had no reason to dish out any cautions.
