Tshegofatso Mabasa’s hat-trick for Orlando Pirates on Saturday was the sixth of the 2023-24 Premier Soccer League season, making it a profitable return for players notching up a trio of goals in a game.
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Mabasa’s three against a hapless Lamontville Golden Arrows in the DStv Premiership on Saturday was the sixth hat-trick bagged this season – three of them in the league and a further three in cup action.
It is the most in a single campaign since the 2019-20 season and the second-highest number of hat-tricks in a season for almost a decade.
Mabaso brings the tally of hat-tricks since the start of the PSL in 1996 to 180.
The tally takes in not only league action but also domestic cups and a sprinkling in African club competitions as well.
This campaign started almost immediately, with a hat-trick when Zakhele Lepasa scored three for Pirates against Sekhukhune United in the MTN8 quarterfinal tie in August.
SUCCESSIVE HAT-TRICKS
Then came the rare feat of successive hat-tricks in meetings between the same two clubs.
First, the Ivorian import Sede Dion scored all the goals as AmaZulu beat Arrows 3-0 in their Carling Knockout quarterfinal tie at the start of November.
Eight days later the two Durban outfits met again in the league and this time Nigerian Augustine Chidi Kwem grabbed a hat-trick for AmaZulu in a 3-1 away win.
In February, two of Mamelodi Sundowns’ Latin imports got hat-tricks with Gaston Sirino scoring three against La Masia in the Nedbank Cup and then Lucas Ribeiro getting a hat-trick against AmaZulu.
The 2015-16 season produced a particularly good return with a total of eight hat-tricks after many years where a trio of goals from a player in a single game had become a rather rare item, but in the 2017-18 there were none.
But it was some 25 years ago – in the 1998-99 season, when Sundowns pipped Kaizer Chiefs to the title – that a record 15 hat-tricks were scored in a single campaign.
NDLANYA - THE HAT-TRICK KING
Pollen Ndlanya, with a total of six, leads the individual total number of hat-tricks. Four of them were scored for Chiefs and one each during his brief tenures at AmaZulu and Pirates.
The fastest hat-trick in South African football remains the five minutes it took James Chamanga to score from the 20th minute to the 25th minute for Moroka Swallows against Platinum Stars in December 2007. He went on to add two more late in the game for a five-goal haul.
Bongolethu Jayiya, then at Cape Town City, took 10 minutes to score a trio of goals from the sixth to the 16th minute in a 4-1 thumping of Chippa United at the Athlone Stadium in April 2017.
A single game delivered three hat-tricks, as well as the only two double hat-tricks in PSL history, when Sundowns broke all records with their 24-0 demolition of hapless Kimberley amateurs Powerlines in the Nedbank Cup in March, 2012.
Hlompho Kekana (seven goals), Nyasha Mushekwi (six) and Richard Henyekane (five) delivered a steady stream on a day of goal-scoring excess.
The term originally allegedly comes from cricket, first appearing in 1858 to describe HH Stephenson taking three wickets with three consecutive deliveries for the All-England Eleven against the twenty-two of Hallam at the Hyde Park ground in Sheffield.
A collection was held, among the spectators, for Stephenson (as was customary for outstanding feats by professionals) and he was presented with a cap or hat bought with the proceeds.