RTU Spank Okwawu

Real Tamale United on Sunday put up a splendid performance to register their first home win when they beat Okwahu United 2-0 on the third week of the GT sponsored Premier league played at the Kaladan Park in Tamale. It was the home team who took the kick-off to start the day's proceedings under the instructions of Kumasi-based Class One referee, Sgt Joseph Debrah.

As soon as RTU passed the ball, Alhassan Weah nearly surprised the visitors when he almost scored from the centre in the first five seconds but Ayitey Joseph in goal for Okwahu made a firm grasp of the ball to prevent RTU from scoring what would have turned out to be the fastest goal for RTU.


The home lads mounted pressure on Okwahu in the first half and made early effort to score but that proved futile.


The trend of the match was as if the RTU boys outnumbered the Okwahu players as the first 30 minutes was played on the visitors half thus making it difficult for RTU to score.


In the 10th minute, RTU had a clear chance to register their first goal but Sabato Yahaya shot wide. Yahaya was on hand again in the 15th minute but he delayed in delivering his shot and allowed the Okwahu defence to clear the ball to corner but it was wasted.

Okwahu put three of their players on RTU's head striker, Weah with close marking that made the bulky attacker finding it almost difficult to make an impact at scoring.


On the 25th minute, Okwahu's Kwabena Edusei attracted the referee's card for rough play but they managed to defend stoutly till the end of the first half with no goal to either side.


RTU started the second half with the same strength and determination and continued to mount more pressure on the 'Mountaineers' but missed a lot of goal scoring chances to the chagrin of their teeming supporters. In 64th minute, RTU had a neat chance to score when Philip Amoako's cross into the visitors goal area hit the hand of a defender and the referee who was close to the incident wasted no time to whistle for a spot kick for RTU, which was neatly converted by Weah to register RTU's first goal.


Four minutes after the goal, Gafaru Abdulai who replaced Peter Yakubu in the second half sent in a long range in an attempt to score but the ball hit a defender and bounced back to Tawfic Alolo who wasted no time in shooting the ball straight into the net to register the second goal. The pressure on the visitors was so much that they had to adopt rough play that resulting in them attracting six yellow cards one of which went to their goalkeeper for challenging the referee's decisions. RTU tried very hard to increase the tally but were unable to increase their tally before the referee whistled to bring the proceedings to an end.