Stellenbosch head coach Steve Barker is hoping to end 2021 off on a good note, and that would start with a victory over Baroka on the weekend.
After an excellent start to the season, Stellenbosch hit a bit of a road bump in recent results, and are win-less in their last seven games. They are currently fifth on the DStv Premiership table, while their opponents on Saturday are 16th.
Barker is pleased to have had a few extra days ahead of this game, having not played mid-week.
“Ja, I think obviously not playing midweek has played into our favour in terms of we have played a lot of matches in a short space of time,” Barker told the club’s media department.
“So to have a bit of a week to prepare just the players to just refreshing mentally, physically and us to just get back on a training ground and improve some areas that we need to be better at, we were not creating as many chances as we did the beginning of the season.
“So it’s regrouping and getting back to being the team that has that ability to create goalscoring opportunities. We just haven’t been doing that enough.
“And then also just being a bit more sort of compact defensively, we’re a difficult team to play against, a difficult team to beat.
“So ja, just a little bit of working on some things that perhaps we just lacked recently.
“But ja, it’s gone well, in terms of preparation, the whole squad is basically available. No one is injured. And it’s only Lee Langeveldt that’s returning from long term injury, but besides that, a clean bill of health.
“So ja, obviously we need to get back to winning ways, it’s important for us to ensure that at home against Baroka that we put in a performance that warrants three points.
“It’s important, we feel that is critical, two matches left before the turn of the year. And we had a difficult year from January, if we can get maximum points from our next two games.
“I believe that we will finish the year on high and then come back next season and go again.”
