APR 4-1 Mbabane Swallows (4-2)

Yanga 2-0 Cercle de Joachim (3-0)

Emmanuel Rubona, the APR FC coach has hailed his players after a resounding 4-1 win over Swaziland’s Mbabane Swallows in the CAF Champions League preliminary round second leg clash played on Saturday at Kigali Regional Stadium.

Central defender Abdul Rwatubyaye netted a historic hat trick while midfielder Patrick Sibomana scored another goal as the Rwandan league champions overturned a 1-0 deficit from the first leg to proceed to the next round with a 4-2 goal aggregate.

APR will next play against Young Africans (Yanga SC) of Tanzania in the first qualification round on the weekend of March of 11-12. The first leg will be in Kigali and the return leg a week later in Dar es Salaam.

After winning the first international match as the in charge of the Military side, Rubona said, "The team is looking better. We are happy to win the game and qualify for the next round; my ambition is to continue winning and giving confidence to my players.”

"We have to look forward for the next game against Young Africans, but now we are going to continue to prepare for the national league. I like the way the team is playing but obviously there is room for improvement,” added Rubona, who took over as APR coach at the start of this season ffollowing the departure of Dusan Dule Suljagic.

The former APR academy coach added, "We missed a lot of chances to score more goals, but we will take that and look forward to win more games in league ahead of the Young Africans game.”

A gracious Mbabane Swallows coach Thabo ‘Koki’ Vilakati said, "I can only salute APR players, they deserved credit because they were better prepared physically and mentally. We didn’t have enough time to prepare, but that is not an excuse. We are going to organize ourselves for next year.”

Rwatubyaye opened the scoring in the eighth minute after a well taken free kick from Jean-Claude Iranzi, the 19-year-old added a second goal seven minutes later, again from Iranzi’s corner and he completed a historic treble in the 75th minute, with Iranzi once again the provider.

Amavubi winger, Iranzi, was at it again, this time setting up Sibomana for the fourth goal in the 90th minute.

Mbabane Swallows consolation goal was scored in the 26th minute by Sanele Mkhweli after his shot was deflected by Emery Bayisenge.

Meanwhile, Young Africans won 2-0 over Cercle de Joachim of Mauritius in the second leg in Dar es Salaam.

Tambwe Hamissi and Thabani Kamusoko scored the goals which saw the Tanzanian side qualify to the next round with 3-0 on aggregate.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw