A rough night for poor Benni

It's no fun being a South African striker. Even if you're topping the scoring charts, you get vilified because you're not slamming in goals at a rate of one per game, like Leo Messi or Robin van Persie and Mario Gomez. Being human is no longer a valid excuse in the surreal era of the superhuman forward.

Never mind the fact that the standard of service usually given to PSL strikers would embarrass City Power. Ask Benni McCarthy. After being lavishly supplied by Tlou Segolela during Orlando Pirates' derby victory, he was made to feel as lonely and desperate as a traffic-light beggar when Free State Stars came to Orlando on Saturday night.

He needed a handwritten sign reading: "No crosses, no through-balls, no snacks. Plz help me feed the Ghost. God bless you."

Until the arrival of Segolela and Daine Klate off the bench late in the second half, Bucs were so appallingly shapeless that watching them was almost physically painful.

Thandani Ntshumayelo, Oupa Manyisa and Benni might as well have been on different planets, so elongated was the Pirates formation. Of course, credit is due to Stars coach Steve Komphela and his troops - their pressing game was savvy and well executed - but Augusto Palacios and his team were woefully incapable of adapting and reacting to the visitors' aggression.

So Benni spent the evening wandering around in his own world, muttering, cursing and gesticulating like a crazy person. And his fate is shared by umpteen South African forwards every weekend. They may not be world-class finishers, but they are given so little support and so few accurate and imaginative passes that it is absurd to blame them alone for the "goal-scoring crisis" afflicting South African football.

If Gomez or Van Persie were to play for any PSL side apart from Sundowns, they would find their scoring rates drastically curbed by the shortage of creativity and sustained pressure generated in the midfield behind them. When Foppe de Haan arrived at Ajax Cape Town, the first problem he identified was that there was "too much space" in the team; his revolution at Ikamva began with drilling the defence, midfield and strikers to swarm up and down the pitch in a pack.

On Saturday, it figured that rising star Edward Manqele was forced to fashion a fine goal from a defensive blunder, while the other two strikes of the night - by Klate and Paulus Masehe - came from setpieces. As for Ndumiso Mabena, who got a comprehensive bollocking from the fans, he is neither as bad as they believe nor as good as a Pirates forward should be.

The next day, Nyasha Mushekwi's slick brace against Wits prompted Bafana fans to wish Sundowns' Zimbabwean was a citizen of this nation.

The footie-loving citizens of our hyperbolic republic appear to have forgotten that we already have a superb centre-forward in Mushekwi's teammate, Katlego Mphela. After just one lean spell in a Bafana jersey, "Killer" has somehow been dismissed as a relic.

Mphela nets in every second game, at both international and club level. That's quality by any measure. He's no Leo Messi, but that's not a crime, is it?