Orlando Pirates powered through a tricky test at Moses Mabhida Stadium, beating Lamontville Golden Arrows 2-1 to take all three Betway Premiership points on Tuesday night.

The victory brought up back-to-back away wins for the visitors, who crossed the 50-point mark with 23 matches played in the current Premiership campaign. They extended the misery of the hosts, who slumped to a third consecutive loss to remain near the bottom of the standings in 14th place.

Sporting several changes from the side that triumphed in the weekend’s Soweto Derby, plenty was demanded from the Bucs defence early on as the home side came out guns blazing. Goalkeeper Melusi Buthelezi was called upon to make a couple of stops in the opening three minutes, keeping out Nhlanhla Zwane’s shot from the left flank before getting a crucial touch to knock a threatening cross from the right out of Velemseni Ndwandwe’s reach.

Bandile Shandu spurned an opportunity when the action swiftly shifted to the other end of the pitch, hooking his shot well off target after getting on the end of a clever flick from Patrick Maswanganyi. The Bucs playmaker was again in the heat of the action, playing a lovely cutback towards Kabelo Dlamini, whose effort from the edge of the box met an unkind deflection amid a sea of green shirts inside the penalty area.

That initial wave of attack proved to be a rare bright period for Pirates, with Arrows grabbing the reins for much of the first half. The hosts camped inside the Buccaneers’ half, getting close to opening the scoring through a couple of wide attempts from Zwane and Siyanda Mthanti.

The former had a shot on target around the half-hour mark, with the help of a deflection which made things slightly trickier for Buthelezi. The shot-stopper was however equal to the task, crouching low to make a fairly comfortable save.

A few half chances landed the way of the Soweto Giants late in the opening half, but they were not able to capitalise as things remained deadlocked on the halfway mark. The scoreline only remained that way for only five minutes after the restart, as Pirates found the bit of clinical play that had eluded them in the previous half.