Five-star Sundowns give Royal AM a hiding

Mamelodi Sundowns proved that last weekend’s 5-2 win over Al-Ahly was no fluke when they scored the same amount of goals against Royal AM on Tuesday night.

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The defending DStv Premiership champions gave Thwihli Thwahla a 5-1 hiding at Loftus Versfeld as they have now scored 26 goals in their last 10 games across all competition.

Cassius Mailula began the rout in the 20th minute when he collected the ball from deep in midfield and found Teboho Mokoena, who played the ball to Neo Maema while Mailula swiftly made a run towards the box to receive a back-heel pass from Maema, and he slotted past Xolani Ngcobo to score his ninth league goal of the season.

Sedwyn George had a chance to equalize for the visitors in few seconds later minute when he was found by a Levy Mashiane cross. The ball flew past the face of goal onto the far right, finding George, who was unlucky and could only hit the upright in his attempt.

Sundowns’ second goal was a gift from their former player, Ricardo Nascimento, who had a night to forget. Around the 27th minute, Peter Shalulile was leading the high-press for Masandawana and that put the Brazilian defender under pressure, leaving him with no option but to play the ball to his goalkeeper.

However, the pass was rather astray and Ngcobo had to chase but could not prevent it from going into the back of the net.

It was then Shalulile’s turn to join in on the goal fest, and the Namibian striker showed his experience when he let the ball roll on to the path of Khuliso Mudau as he was in an offside position. However, the Sundowns defender was quick to return the ball to Shalulile, who fired past Ngcobo.

Shaulile did not take long to double up and increased his season tally to 19 goals across all competitions. He benefited from Royal AM’s poor defending as they could not deal with an Aubrey Modiba corner kick and Shalulile made the most of the scrabble in the box.

Substitute Lantshene Phalane scored a banger to give the visitors something to talk about in the 64th minute, as he scored a goal similar to the Hlompho Kekana top shelve thunderbolts.

Mothobi Mvala, however, put the cherry on the cake with a powerful header in the 75th minute as he scored from a Modiba corner kick.