Simba Bhora coach Tonderai Ndiraya believes the Castle League Premier Soccer League fixture congestion contributed to the way his side performed in their 0-1 loss to bottom-plaed GreenFuel at the National Sports Stadium today.

Washington Mapuya’s 15th minute free kick went through a poorly organized wall by Simba’s substitute goalkeeper Rashid Seidu for the only goal of the game, propelling the Ethanol Boys to their first win of the season.

Simba were awarded a penalty for handball in the 58th minute but David Bizabani, in goal for GreenFuel, dived to his right to deny Blessing Moyo from 12 yards.

In his post-match interview, Ndiraya, apart from the mistake made by Seidu leading to GreenFuel’s goal, bemoaned the fact that his charges were made to play on Thursday, having been in Zvishavane on Sunday, where they played out a 1-1 stalemate with fellow Premiership debutants Sheasham at Mandava.

“It has been very difficult for us today, we started very slowly in the first half. In fact, before we started we were unfortunate to lose our first choice goalkeeper Simbarashe Chinani, he got injured during warm up,” said Ndiraya.

We had to quickly bring on board Rashid (Seidu) our second choice goalkeeper. I thought he was a bit nervous, it was his first game, he was so nervous in the first half and that led to so many blunders that he made, and of course, the goal that we conceded.

“But overally I think we were not really ourselves in the first half. Physically, we were not on point. We traveled to Zvishavane (for the Sheasham game), we played on Sunday and we had to play again yesterday in fact.

“We had to plead with the authorities to have our game pushed to today (Thursday).

“I don’t really know the rationale of us playing on Thursday when everyone else is playing at the weekend.

Naturally,  it was difficult for us to manage the recovery of the players that’s why I think we had jaded first half. Naturally, we were down but came back for the second half, and we were a bit better.

“We got a penalty,  which I thought was an opportunity for us to come back into the game,  but we missed. After the miss, we tried to push but we were not as sharp as we wanted the team to be,” added Ndiraya.

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