Cape Town - Keagan Dolly scored a brace as an impressive South African Under-23 side walloped Zimbabwe 3-0 in their 2016 Olympic qualifier played at the Harry Gwala Stadium on Saturday evening.
They will now play in the CAF Under-23 Championships in November/December in Senegal, after qualifying 4-1 on aggregate over the two legs.
Amaglug-glug started the match like a house on fire scoring two quick goals within the opening 10 minutes of the match first through Dolly before Gift Motupa made it 2-0 a few minutes later.
Dolly made a good run, combining with Siphelele Ntshangase, before beating the Zimbabwean goalkeeper for the opening goal of the match.
Zimbabwe came close to snatching an equaliser in the third minute but the goal post came to the rescue for South Africa to deny Mtizwa.
Motupa on the other hand capitalised on Zimbabwe’s poor marking from a well curled ball from Dolly who turned provider in Amaglug-glug’s second goal.
Owen Da Gama’s side continued to threaten and came close to adding a third as the match approached the half hour mark with a Dolly effort cleared off the line after he was set-up by Ntshangase.
Motupa also had a good chance in the 32nd minute but his effort failed to find the target.
South Africa went to the half-time break leading 2-0 and were well placed to advance to the next stage of the Olympic qualifiers.
The second half started in a similar fashion as the first half with Amaglug-glug enjoying more possession and with Dolly and Ntshangase in the thick of things.
Zimbabwe had a few moments in attack through Kuda Mahachi and Walter Musona, but could not penetrate the Amaglug-glug defence marshalled by captain Kwanda Mngonyama.
Da Gama added fire power in attack bringing on Riyaad Norodien who replaced Andile Fikizolo in search of more goals to kill off the game.
However, South Africa squandered more chances to increase the scoreline in the second half with Abbubakar Mobara’s shot going wide in the 70th minute as the youngsters began to entertain the crowd with some show-boating.
The outstanding Ntshangase was unlucky not to have put his name among the scorers in the 84th minute after showing great composure in dribbling past a number of defenders but his effort narrowly missed the target.
Dolly wrapped up the win for South Africa registering a brace from a free-kick in the 90th minute to hand Da Gama a 3-0 victory.