Rayon’s Eymael plays down league title talk

Rayon Sports coach Luc Eymael prefers not to focus on the prospect of the champions successfully defending their Turbo King Football National league title.

Monday, February 24, 2014
Luc Eymael (right) listens to one his assistants Thierry Hitimana, left, as they emerged from the tunnel in the game against AC Leopards in the Caf Champions League two weeks ago.....

Rayon Sports coach Luc Eymael prefers not to focus on the prospect of the champions successfully defending their Turbo King Football National league title.

 He played down suggestions that he might lead Rayon to glory in his first year in charge, insisting that his concern is getting the job done one  game at a time.

Rayon returned to the top of the league after beating rivals Police 2-1 at Stade de Kigali on Sunday.

"For us, it’s about concentration until the end of the season, we want to take it game by game, there are eight matches still to play,” the Belgian told Times Sport.

He added: "It was a good performance against a very good Police side, one of the teams in the title race. The importance of performing well consistently is you get the results. We’ve shown that this season.”

On Sunday, the seven-time league winners took the lead a minute into the second half through Djamal Mwiseneza.

The Rwandan international midfielder bounced on a blunder by Police goalkeeper Alexis Ganza, who punched a stinging Cedric Amissi shot into Mwiseneza’s path.

Amissi made it 2-0 in the 61st minute for his ninth league goal of the season after beating an off-side trap.

Fabrice Twagizimana pulled one back for Sam Ssimbwa’s Police FC with ten minutes to full time.

"We weren’t quite at our best but we scored two good goals and won the game, we are going to take it game by game. There’s absolutely no doubt we will continue to work hard if we are to win more games,” said Eymael.

"Offensively, we were absolutely good, we could have scored more goals but we are happy to return to the top of the league table,” he added.

Eymael has won all his three league matches and drew twice against AC Leopards of Congo in the CAF Champions League since joining Rayon earlier this month.

Rayon Sports lead the table with 43 points. They are tied on points as APR but with a better goal difference. Police FC are 12 points off the pace.