Maritzburg United not giving up on fight for survival

Fadlu Davids had to try hard to keep a straight face and hide his emotions after his team’s 2-2 draw against Marumo Gallants in the DStv Premiership on Wednesday. 

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The draw makes things even harder for Maritzburg who are still at the bottom of the DStv Premiership standings with two games left. 

Davids’ side needed a win against Gallants to keep their relegation survival hopes alive. 

And at one point they looked like they could get them. Maritzburg took the lead twice but Gallants fought back and wrestled a point.

And this left Davids understandably frustrated because their survival now depends on the other team’s results more than their own.

For the Blue Hearts to survive, they will need Gallants and Chippa United to lose both of their last games.

“We fought… To go twice ahead and be able to keep it is frustrating. We have the same way of conceding goals,” said Davids after the match at Harry Gwala Stadium. 

“These are really soft goals. In the first goal we couldn’t deal with the ball and they scored from the rebound. And we conceded again in the last seconds of the game 

“We have been having these moments a lot. We try to fix it and we will not give up, we will keep pushing.

“There are still two games to play and we will keep fighting until the end,” added the Maritzburg mentor.

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When the side conceded the second goal with a few minutes to the end, the supporters left in frustration and shouting unprintable words at the players. 

Davids admitted that they were also hard hit by the draw but called on his team to quickly forget the result and look for the next.

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“When you concede a goal like that it is demoralising. But we can’t go into the next game with this disappointment.

“We have to lift our heads up and fight again until we get the three points. We know what we need in the last games and that’s what we will push for.”

Maritzburg will have to dig deep if they are going to get points off Stellenbosch FC and Mamelodi Sundowns in their last two games.