Limpopo coach Burney Mamphsika wants his team to express themselves in their last Varsity Football match of their debut season against log-leaders UJ next week.
The newcomers have no yet won a game in their first season, but Mamphsika says that they have not disgraced themselves at all.
He said that he told the players to hold their chins up high and use this tournament as a learning curve. He said that he is proud of his players and he knows that in tournaments to come, University of Limpopo will find themselves right up there in the log table.
“I told the boys that this is the beginning of the journey, not the end of the journey. They must know that we have a next game to play. We need to go express ourselves, we need to go and display our skills,” he said.
Mamphsika said that their major challenge in their latest defeat in Port Elizabeth was NMMU’s approach to the game. He said that indicated that NMMU were a side that were plying their trade in the Vodacom Second division.
“We lost it that the goalkeeping department, the challenge was that they were playing more straight, book football. I think that they had a higher work rate than us. ”
“We lost it [the game] by losing unnecessary balls in the middle of the park where our players where to casual instead of being hard on the opponents,” he added.
Mamphsika said that he believes Madibaz as NMMU are affectionately known were not that strong, he said that UL at times matched Madibaz pound for pound.
“NMMU was not that outstanding. We managed to play them pound for pound. It’s just we were a bit loose in the game.”
“The result was not a true reflection of what transpired. We managed to contain them the whole first half. It’s just an unfortunate mistake at the back, in the second half. That goal demoralised the entire team,” he explained.
He said that there are no injuries, except for some players who stayed behind in the Limpopo province due to academic commitments.
The Turfloop Campus side will go back to the drawing board, and rectify mistakes made ahead of their final Varsity Football match against ruthless Gauteng based log leaders University of Johannesburg at the Bunting Sports Complex on Monday evening.
By Noko Pela
