New Highlanders signing Rodreck Mutuma made his debut for the Bulawayo giants on Tuesday afternoon in an international friendly against Power Dynamos of Zambia at Luveve Stadium.

Highlanders lost the game 2-1.

The friendly match which had initially been scheduled for last Sunday but was called off due to a waterlogged Luveve Stadium almost failed to kick off again on Tuesday with both teams forced to endure an embarrassing one and half hours wait as match officials assigned to the game were nowhere to be seen.

Thabani Mnkantjo a member of the Zimbabwe Referees Committee, said the match officials ‘thought the incessant rains would lead to another cancellation of the match’.

Some Highlanders executives blamed force majeure for the almost embarrassing situation with secretary general Emmett Ndlovu saying the delay was beyond their control as a club.

“Look, the initial match was cleared for Sunday and following the cancellation due to rains, it meant we had to reapply again to the authorities to clear today’s (Tuesday) match but rains kept on pounding and it wasn’t clear whether the match will go ahead or not. We only got clearance today (Tuesday),” said Ndlovu.

It was however strange that the referee Allen Basvi and his team chose not to come to the stadium even though they were told well before kickoff time, instead coming at 1620hrs. The situation could have been explosive had the fans been impatient but they chose to stay calm although some had a word or two to the match officials upon their arrival.

When the match finally kicked off it was the Zambians who were clearly on top of the situation with some nice exchange of passes but the stadium erupted into cheering when new signing Rodrick Mutuma got his first touch.

Despite not scoring the former Dynamos striker left the crowd that was at Luveve Stadium convinced that it was not a bad buy by Coach Erol Akbay. 

Mutuma partnered Prince Dube upfront but the combination was not as fluid as was expected by the Bosso technical team with Dube choosing to be selfish whenever in possession and not passing the ball to his fellow striker.

Mutuma could be seen constantly shaking his head in frustration from Dube’s unsportsman behavior that seeks to take the glory out of a new arrival in the team.