The furthest thing on Arthur Zwane’s mind on Saturday afternoon when he trudged out on to the field at the ABSA Stadium in Durban, is that he was going to be the man who would pull Chiefs level in their grudge match against Soweto rivals Orlando Pirates. As Chiefs were trailing 2-1 in the second half they managed to get a lucky break when Pirates failed to effectively deal with a Chiefs attack, and the ball fell invitingly for Zwane who had the simple of job of heading the ball into a virtually empty net as Pirates keeper Senzo Meyiwa tried in vain to stop his attempt.

While the crowd at the ABSA Stadium went wild with celebration when Arthur found the net just past the hour mark, to bring the teams level at 2-2 and in so doing also ensured that Chiefs would extend their unbeaten run against Pirates to more than three years. For Zwane it was a sense of personal satisfaction as he managed to get onto to the score sheet after almost two years, as he went for the entire 2006 – 2007 season with out a goal.

Last time out

A final minute goal on the 11th September 2005 saw Arthur complete his brace in a league game against Dynamos at the Giyani Stadium, as he scored his second goal and added to one he notched in the 40th minute. Those pair of goals were the last scored by Zwane prior to him finding one against Pirates on Saturday, he spoke of his joy to kaizerchiefs.com of getting what had been a statistic that did not make good reading off his back. As he added “for me it was too long with out a goal, it seemed that I had gone an eternity without finding the back of the net, going for so many games with out getting on the score board was really frustrating. You can not understand how I felt when the ball crossed the line on Saturday, in terms of the game it brought us level in the wider scheme of things it was just a huge relief to have scored a goal again”.

Local Derby

The last time Pirates managed to defeat Chiefs in a league game was on the 30th October 2004 and Arthur was the goal scorer of The Amakhosi’s only goal during that 2-1 loss, for him on a personal level there are two fixtures on the calendar that are a matter of life and death. He divulges further “two games for me on a personal level mean a lot to me during the regular season, the first one is our encounters with Jomo Cosmos being the first team I ever played for I play like there is no tomorrow when ever we come up against them”. Zwane further adds “the next match that I will do anything I can to ensure that I do not lose is against Pirates, as they are also a former team of mine these are two games that there is no way I can imagine losing so you can understand what it means to me to score in a game against one of these teams”.