Lepasa hopes brace can ease pressure on Pirates strikers

Following his Man-of-the-Match performance for Orlando Pirates against TS Galaxy, two-goal hero Zakhele Lepasa now believes the pressure of scoring will drop a little for Pirates’ players.

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Lepasa opened his 2022/23 DStv Premiership account with two goals against Galaxy, which helped Pirates edge the Rockets 2-0 in the DStv Premiership at the Orlando Stadium on Saturday.

The Pirates players have been under a lot of pressure to score goals, especially the strikers, who have been missing a lot of chances.

Lepasa has been one of the players performing well for the club, but a lack of finishing power upfront has been a major issue for the 25-years old, which has cost the team victories in some of their matches.

Lepasa dedicated the goals to all the attackers at Pirates.

“First of all, congratulations to all the forward players. We have been under pressure to score goals and we have been missing a lot of chances. Sometimes it doesn’t matter how we score, as long as we get the job done. And this is proof that if we score we will win a lot of games,” said Lepasa.

Both of his goals did have an element of luck, the first taking a big deflection and the second looking like a cross that looped over the Galaxy goalkeeper.

Lepasa says it was vital for the club to bounce back after losing 1-0 to Maritzburg United prior to the Rockets match.

“It was very important for us to score … in three years, it was the first time that we were on top of the log after about five or six games played. But it meant a lot to us. So, for us to drop points and move away from that, we didn’t want to go back to how we felt the previous seasons,” he added.

“We knew that we had to bounce back only with a win.”

Pirates will now be out of action for some time, with the team’s next game only coming up on October 1, after the international break when they host Mamelodi Sundowns in the semifinals of the MTN8.