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Ricky Zililo, Senior Sports Reporter
ZIFA Southern Region was forced to postpone a Division One league match due to a waterlogged pitch.

The First Division season kicked off at the weekend, with six matches being played out of eight fixtures.

The Casmyn versus Indlovu Iyanyathela game couldn’t be played in Turk Mine due to a muddy and waterlogged pitch following days of heavy rains.

The Mosi Rovers and CIWU encounter was postponed as the latter was roped into the league as a last minute replacement for Motomoto and is still underdoing registration formalities.

Fiso Siziba, Zifa Southern Region board member responsible for competitions, who was among the vocal councillors at the last national AGM protesting against the change of season, said they have been vindicated.

“We were forced to call off the game between Casmyn and Indlovu Iyanyathela due to the rains. This ignites the debate that we have had before on whether we change the season to align with the rest of the world. I think we’ve been vindicated because look, now we just failed to have one of our games played because of the rains. Now we’re bracing for such incidents as we’re in the rainy season, but we pray that maybe we’ll have few disruptions to our programme,” said Siziba.

Former Premiership side Hwange opened their account with a 3-1 victory against debutants Emakhandeni.

Another league debutant Mountain Climbers marked their arrival with a 3-0 win over Quality Foods, while Bosso 90 picked up maximum points on the road by beating Binga 2-0.

Former Premiership side Zimbabwe Saints marked their return to the second tier league with a 2-1 victory against perennial campaigners ZPC Hwange.

Mainline beat new boys Indosakusa 2-1, while Ajax lost 2-3 to Arenel.