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Cape Town - Mamelodi Sundowns opened up a six-point lead at the top of the Premiership standings as they came from behind to hammer Free State Stars 5-2 in Orkney on Sunday.
Ea Lla Koto came out the blocks flying and were ahead inside the opening 60 seconds, Mrisho Ngasa feeding the ball in for Venter, who made no mistake to fire home past Wayne Sandilands.
Sundowns looked for a quick response and almost found one through Khama Billiat, but the Zimbabwe international could only fire straight at Daouda Diakite, who showed good hands to hold on.
Stars then came close to adding a second shortly before the half-hour mark but Mrisho Ngasa could only steer his header over the crossbar, and they would soon pay for that miss as Arendse headed home the equaliser for Sundowns from a Billiat corner five minutes before the break.
Sundowns continued asking most of the questions after half-time and took the lead after 59 minutes, Castro playing the ball through for Dolly, who smartly put the ball past the keeper to turn the game on its head.
Mosimane's men looked to have suddenly stepped it up a gear and opened up a two-goal lead just moments after going ahead, this time Castro getting himself amongst the goals as the Brazilians threatened to run away with it.
Any hopes Stars had of staging a comeback were all but ended with 14 minutes remaining as Sundowns bagged a fourth, Billiat the scorer this time as he made amends for his earlier miss, although Stars were able to take some of the gloss off the score line Venter provided the assist for Somaeb to snatch a late consolation goal.
However, the pain wasn't over for the home fans that still remained in the stadium as Sundowns soon had a fifth, Ngele getting in on the goal-fest to drive the final nail through Stars' coffin.
