Pirates coach Ncikazi lauds Peprah for breaking goal-scoring duck

It took 13 games for Orlando Pirates striker Kwame Peprah to finally find the back of the net, but Bucs co-coach Mandla Ncikazi always believed in the Ghana born striker despite not scoring in the previous games.

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The striker netted twice to help the Soweto giants defeat Marumo Gallants 2-1 at the Orlando Stadium last Monday, his first and second goal for the club separated by two minutes in the game.

Peprah joined the Buccaneers at the beginning of the season with so much hope that he will solve Pirates scoring issues, especially with the club missing some of their forwards like Zakehele Lepasa, Gabadinho Mhango and Tshegofatso Mabasa in some of their matches, but the Ghanaian striker failed to find his rhythm at Bucs early on.  

“Peprah has always shown good signs where he was perhaps unlucky in some moments. As a technical team, we have a responsibility to support him where it’s important that we see the game as coaches and not like everybody else,” said the Pirates mentor.

“He was not scoring but still contributing to the team setup and buildups in attack where he would provide assists if possible. That’s his contribution which is how we saw the match. I’m also very happy that he started scoring today.”

The victory against Gallants made Ncikazi very proud of his team and went on to say that he understands the club’s fans have been frustrated with the inconsistency from the team and further states that they deserve better results.

“Just happy that we just went through, there are matches we played well but did not get a result. Today we just wanted to go over the line and I’m proud of the team, proud of the players. I know our supporters are highly frustrated, which I understand their frustration, they deserve better. Our chairman (Irvin Khoza) deserves better,” he added.

“Processes of this nature, the team goes through this. All big teams go through this process. I’m just happy the players are with us and we got the result today.”