Austin Oladapo netted a brace on both sides of Samson Obi’s debut goal to give Enyimba Football Club a 3-1 win over Nasarawa United in Nigeria Professional Football League match at the Enyimba Stadium this evening.
Hamza Owolabi’s rebound early in the second half looked to have given Nasarawa a lifeline from a two-goal halftime deficit, but Oladapo’s late finish rendered it a mere consolidation as Enyimba marched to their third win in four outings.
After a drab opening bereft of notable action, the encounter sparked off in the nineteenth minute when Danlami Umar fouled Martins Usule in the box, resulting in an injury that got the striker stretchered off immediately.
Oladapo stepped up to convert the resultant penalty and hand Abd’Allah’s men their first lead of the new NPFL season.
Despite denying the hosts much room with their high press, the visitors failed to threaten until the half hour when Abubakar Lawal’s tricky freekick was parried away by Theophilus Afelokhai.
The impressive Daniel Darkwah broke free at the other end with an audacious run and exchange with Samson Obi before pulling a near post save from Danlami.
Enyimba doubled the lead at the end of the first half with Samson Obi getting on the end of Abalogu’s splitting run to slot into the near post for his first Enyimba goal.
Nasarawa looked bright at the restart and halved the deficit twelve minutes later when Hamza Owolabi sent home a rebound after his penalty was saved by Afelokhai.
Usman Abd’Allah brought on Chukwuka Onuwa for Guera and the diminutive substitute proved crucial in the closing stages with a tasty through ball to set up Oladapo who fired into the far post for Enyimba’s third and the midfielder’s second of the evening.
Enyimba, now with four points from their opening two fixtures, will return to action on Sunday with another home game against Akwa United.
