With Keagan Dolly pulling the strings, Kaizer Chiefs ran out  2-1 winners over Baroka FC at the FNB Stadium on Wednesday evening.

Having dominated for the opening hour of the match, the home side were made to sweat for the win after missing a bunch of simple goal-scoring chances.

With Dolly making his first league start, Chiefs dished up the kind of football their fans have been crying out for in the opening stanza, and although they were 2-0 up at half-time, it should actually have been five goals, such was their dominance.

With just a couple of seconds played, the hosts looked set to take the lead through Bernard Parker after a mistake from the home defence, but with the goal at his mercy and with Khama Billiat in a great position, the veteran striker shot straight against a defender’s legs.

The opening goal though was not long in coming and it materialized from an eye-catching move as Dolly sold the visiting defence a dummy which opened up the space for Njabulo Blom down the right wing. Blom’s low cross was inch-perfect and Billiat’s first time finish high into the roof of the net gave goalkeeper Oscarine Masuluke no chance, 1-0 after eight minutes played.

Another slick move soon after could also have ended in a goal, but it was not to be as Billiat ballooned his shot over the bar.

It was instead Daniel Cardoso who added the second goal in the 27th minute, the defender doing superbly to get on the end of Sifio Hlanti’s cross – the ball had been played a little behind him – before steering a looping header into the top corner.

Amakhosi remained in charge and it took a wonderful reflex save from Masuluke to touch Dolly’s deflected cross over the crossbar.

In the final eight minutes of the first half, Billiat could and should have added a further three goals all by himself.

Twice he steered low shots wide of the upright, having been put clean through on goal first by Dolly and then by Cole Alexander, while he also struck the upright after a Blom cross had been deflected into his path.

Six minutes after the restart and there was yet another glaring miss from the Soweto side, Parker the guilty man – after being sent clear through on goal by Dolly, he could have scored himself or picked out one of Billiat or Samir Nurkovic, but instead played an attempted pass too close to the only defender in the box, Denwin Farmer, who made a good clearance.

Farmer wasn’t finished yet and popped up soon afterwards to pull a goal back for Baroka, scoring in the 59th minute with a sumptuous volley from a corner by Nhlanhla Mgaga as Chiefs paid the price for not having taken the game out of sight.

Unsurprisingly, Baroka grew in confidence from the goal while Stuart Baxter saw his side becoming increasingly cagey and with 11 minutes to go a weak back-pass by Erick Mathoho nearly caused problems – luckily for the defender his goalkeeper Bruce Bvuma was able to bail him out.

Moments later Bvuma missed a cross and nearly conceded – he was lucky to see Richard Mbulu’s header glance the upright and go out of play.

There was another chance for Farmer in the 88th minute, but he fired well over the bar after the ball had fallen kindly for him in the Chiefs box.

Thankfully from Baxter’s point of view, the Glamour Boys were able to play out the four minutes of referee’s additional side with relative comfort – apart from a Farmer header right at the death which Bvuma scrambled clear – to ensure the three points.