WELL HELLO DOLLY: after years of waiting, South Africa finally gets a glimpse of Keagan's genius

DOLLIGHTFUL: Keagan Dolly after his 1st goal in Gambia

I said hello, Dolly, 

Well, hello, Dolly

 It's so nice to have you back

where you belong

You're lookin' swell, Dolly

I can tell, Dolly

You're still glowin'

You're still crowin'

You're still goin' strong

Those are the lyrics of one Louis Armstrong, in a hit single which swept around the world in 1964 after the launch of “Hello Dolly”, the musical of the same name.

I was three at the time but here we are, 52 years later and Keagan Dolly, aged 23, has finally become a hit with South Africa’s national football team.

Dolly, from the same Westbury suburb west of Johannesburg as Everton’s Steven Pienaar, should have been a Bafana Bafana veteran with 30+ caps by now.

But years of non-selection by the agent-manipulated national head coach Ephraim “Shakes” Mashaba meant that his two assists and two fantastic strikes in Gambia on Saturday marked just his SECOND international appearance.

Dolly, who moved from Ajax Cape Town to Mamelodi Sundowns for R7m in 2014, was actually given a debut that year during 3-0 win over Sudan in Omdurman.

Since then, Mashaba has used various excuses to keep South Africa’s finest young player out of the senior squad, ranging from youth, lack of fitness, being on loan at his former club Ajax Cape Town, and - infamously - refusing to pick Keagz for the AFCON 2017 clashes against Cameroon this year “because he is involved in the U23 friendly in Brazil”.

While Rivaldo Coetzee, three years younger, was consistently selected despite obvious failings, Dolly was persistently ignored despite his progress in the PSL with Pitso's Masandawana.

That glaring omission came back to haunt Shaky on Saturday. Dolly, rampaging down the left, made two goals for low-scoring Orlando Pirates striker Thami Gabuza before thumping home two of his own from outside the box. Imagine, we asked, if Dolly had played in all the Group M qualifiers? Would that left foot have been the difference against Cameroon?

It was Dolly’s day. So much so that it’s hard to imagine him returning to PSL champions Mamelodi Sundowns after the Rio Olympics, he is surely bound for a European apprenticeship in September.

CHAMPION: Keagan Dolly in action for Sundowns

Amid the bizarre suggestions that this was some stroke of Mashaba genius or that we had suddenly found a superhero, the more enlightened Bafana fans recognised the record 4-0 away win in Bakau for what it was: too little, too late for our boys.

Dolly himself said: "There’s more to come, watch this space!

“This has been some year for me. I have won lots of things, selected for major awards and now being called for the national team and do this.

“It gives me a wonderful feeling but I want to continue working hard so that I repay the faith my coaches have placed on me.

“The coach told me to shoot when I am within range and I did exactly that in the second half and the rest as they say, is history.

“With the team leading 2-0 and cruising, I told myself ‘give it a go’ and boy I have never felt so good.

“My career is really blossoming but will continue to work hard, keep my feet grounded and put more effort in whatever I do.”

The sky appears to be the limit now for Dolly as Sundowns head in to the group stages of the African Champions League by default and Bafana prepare for COSAFA and the Olympics.

But soon the World Cup draw will outline the way ahead for South African football, where Dolly will become the central figure in Bafana’s plans.

It matters not who leads the nation in to those qualifiers, Dolly - and other youngsters ignored despite Danny Jordaan’s now-forgotten Vision 2022 plans - are the future for South Africa football. The nation will insist on a youthful future after Dolly’s heroics, no matter who leads the team.

Though a national coach who picks on form, youth and is capable of understanding modern football would be a major advantage in what promises to be a turbulent road to Russia in 2018.

RESPECT FOR HLOMPHO KEKANA... and another chance for Bafana to restore South Africa's pride

MARK GLEESON, a man who knows something about South African football, described it as “the best goal Bafana Bafana have ever scored.”

I took the 2m tall SuperSport commentator to his first professional football game as a journalist in 1985 in Durban - at Glebelands in Umlazi. We’ve seen a lot of goals, but Hlompho Kekana’s 65m effort against Cameroon deserved to win ANY game.

Sadly, it didn’t. Cameroon came back from Tokelo Rantie’s excellent early strike in Limbe and then, after the shock of Kekana’s wonder goal, they did it again to ensure the Lions remain Indomitable at home.

The strike...

Tonight at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban, Shakes Mashaba’s men - the first side to take points off Cameroon in Group M - get another chance to save some pride in what has been a disastrous AFCON 2017 qualifying campaign.

Two points from three games - after a home draw against little Gambia and that awful defeat in Mauritania - means qualification for Gabon next year is highly unlikely.

But a win tonight might just open the door a crack, assuming both Cameroon (seven points) and Mauritania (six points) slip up badly on the run in. Only the Group M leaders qualify for AFCON 2017 - along with the best two runners-up out of 13.

Even if they win ALL of their last three qualifiers, Bafana can only reach 11 points. Like their cricketing cousins, South Africa’s footballers appear to have choked in what looked a reasonable qualifying group.

Kekana himself, picked by Gordon Igesund for the national team in the 0-0 draw against New Zealand two years ago, refuses to be downhearted as videos of his Beckhamesque goal flash around the globe.

He says: “We should not be where we are at the moment. We know how important the points are in this group and if we have to start collecting them.

...the goal...

“The Durban match a very crucial one. A win there will enhance our chances and we know we are very capable of doing that, we just need to apply ourselves a little better and try to minimise mistakes.”

Of THAT goal, Kekana grins:  “I always check how the keeper leaves his line when they are attacking. This started at Sundowns training four months back.

“After we dispossesed Cameroon I looked up and saw the keeper well off his line and I took a chance, thankfully it went in.

“I was very excited - I’ve been trying to score goals like that at Sundowns but I couldn’t. At training I would hit more than ten balls with none going in and it was frustrating.

“But when the goals come in a match of the calibre against Cameroon it always bring joy – and not only to me but to my teammates and the entire country which shows just how much the goals means to everyone, not just to me. So this goal is for them.

...the celebration

"Saturday in Limbe was a very tactical match; both teams had an attacking mind. It’s a game we thought we will win but it wasn’t to be.

"We gave away the lead too easily but then again a point away from home is also welcome, but we know we could have done better. But hey this is Cameroon we are talking about here; few teams can achieve what we have done.

"We really have to win on Tuesday night, we have no more options left as we are left with nine points to play for seeing that we only have two after three matches. Three points will take us closer to the leaders with two matches remaining and we have to fight. I believe in this team and still think that we stand a chance of going to Gabon."

With any luck Kekaha can produce another wonder goal tonight. And Tokelo Rantie showed on Saturday he can score in Africa despite being ejected from Bournemouth's Premier League squad.

Three points won’t solve Mashaba’s problems but it will certainly go some way towards restoring South Africa’s footballing pride.

Hero or villain? How do we judge Shakes Mashaba after a rousing 3-0 win over mighty Mauritius?

SUPERSHAKES: Bafana coach Mashaba

LOOK! In the sky above Dobsonville! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's SUPERSHAKES! All hail an emphatic 3-0 win over mighty Mauritius hours after half his squad had deserted him. What powers, what magic from our much-maligned Bafana Bafana coach.

But there will be no comic book adulation for Ephraim Mashaba here. Sadly, we cannot abide quite that level of hero-worship after putting three first half goals past the side beaten 7-1 by Ghana a week before.

Yes, Bra Shakes had to cope with a mass withdrawal of players just 48 hours before the game and yes, he had only one training session with this makeshift side before the CHAN qualifier.

But hold on a minute: Bafana played reasonably well with only one dose of Mashaba. Perhaps that's the way to go. Announce the squad a couple of hours before the game and send them out and let them play.

Experienced players who have played under Mashaba say the same as they did when Gordon Igesund was in charge: the training sessions are uninspiring, the team talks are less than adequate. No wonder they wanted to go back to their clubs.

A brief examination of why Orlando Pirates, Bidvest Wits, Orlando Pirates, Ajax Cape Town and Mamelodi Sundowns pulled 12 players out of the squad reveals a deeper malaise than simple club v country politics.

The root cause of last week’s Bafana crisis lies in Mashaba’s insecurity. He chose to keep his strongest squad together after the awful 0-0 home draw against Group M minnows Gambia in an effort to beat Angola in Tuesday’s friendly.

It worked, of course. After endless goalless minutes, Shaky Bafana won the friendly 2-1, ironically on an own goal, though Ayanda Patosi's cunning lob deserved better than that.

But when the players, already in camp for a week in Durban, moved from Cape Town to Johannesburg, everyone knew the big players were supposed to return to their clubs for pre-season, just as we knew Tokelo Rantie would not turn up for the Gambia game after his wedding.

South African football is guilty of poor communication, mismanagement and a first qualifier which will make qualifying for AFCON 2017 tougher than ever with Cameroon and Mauritania to come. We won’t even mention the scramble to find players on Friday and the fact that three of them turned up without passports and were thus rendered ineligible.

So it’s very hard to get too excited about a 3-0 win over Mauritania. Especially when the coach comes out afterwards and complains that his players “need to learn to unlock teams like this, they must be able to score against a side parking the bus”.

But of course, in order to do that, they have to have leadership and tactical guidance from the coach. And of that, there was little sign after a rousing first half in front of a worryingly empty Dobsonville Stadium, right in the heart of Soweto.

Yes, we can celebrate a rare romp against an island nation currently ranked 176 in the world, and as Mashaba rightly said: “We are not scared of them, we do not fear the away leg in two weeks.”

But throughout a week of crisis and turmoil, Mashaba and his media men have failed to explain the full facts of a crisis which left South Africa without a team barely a day before a match scheduled for months.

We were left with a stony silence from Danny Jordaan – the SAFA president who now doubles up as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay – or PSL chairman Irvin Khoza. Nobody explained why the players returned to their clubs or why the planned use of “fringe players” for CHAN wasn’t implemented until the final hours before Saturday’s game.

In truth, with one point registered at AFCON and first hurdle failures in both the COSAFA Cup and Plate, our game is rapidly sliding backwards. The same old problems are cropping up but most are too scared to explain them away.

Yes, it was great to be 3-0 up at half-time – perhaps even better escape Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula’s ill-judged hype which we were subjected to twice during coverage of the Angola friendly.

And we can celebrate the emergence of two-goal Siphelele Ntshangase and Marc van Heerden - both still officially NFD players with Black Leopards and AmaZulu - as well as the enduring, unbeaten brilliance of captain Itumeleng Khune.

But the truth is, that 0-0 draw against Gambia at home was the important result for Bafana in a turbulent eight day period. Friendly wins and CHAN qualifiers are of no importance. Vision 2022 was what we were promised, but I see no vision at all. Just a blind scramble for available players at the last minute.

I hate being the Grinch who stole CHANmas, but that simply cannot be the way ahead.