Swallows coach Dylan Kerr was delighted to get a last minute equaliser against Stellenbosch on Wednesday, but felt his team chould have won the game.
Kerr says Stellenbosch is a tough place to come to, but he felt his side played some good football on the day.
“We got a point away from home, it’s a very, very tough place to come to,” Kerr said after the game.
“They’re third top, we’re now third bottom still, but I thought we took the game to Stellenbosch.
“I know how tough it is to play against Steve Barker’s team. But I thought straight from the kickoff, we made our own game, and we played some great football.
“I think sometimes we complicate things by doing the difficult thing in certain areas. But I can’t fault my players for effort and enthusiasm, energy and playing the way they did.”
Kerr says he’s now had more time to work with the team, and he feels things are coming together.
“Yeah, because when I came, we had six games in 17 days,” he continued.
“So I never had chance to work with my players. I didn’t know the makeup, we’ve got a jigsaw puzzle, I had to fit pieces in into positions in places that I didn’t know, I didn’t know that the character of the players, I didn’t know the attitude of the players, so it was very, very difficult.
“Then we returned from Christmas and New Year’s break, and it gave me four weeks, kind of a mini preseason to get to know the players, get to know their attitude, get to know the character and fit the jigsaw pieces together.
“And as you saw (today), again no disrespect to Stellenbosch I thought we absolutely battered them.
“But, I think we gave them one chance, and we gave them that chance because we switched off, and we go through it every single time, pre match, the meeting before kickoff, in the dressing room, if you go in my dressing room now you’ll see pictures of all the Stellenbosch set pieces, where the danger, who the danger man is, where the ball will be delivered. And we switched off. That’s when you got to look at your players and say, who’s who’s not picking the guy up and we got punished by it.
Kerr says his team has shown a lot of character, and deserved to get something from the game, but says it’s now important to get three points in their next match, against TS Galaxy.
“I’ll be honest with you, I’ve seen that character since we came back from Christmas, from the break,” he said.
“And I even knew that in the games before the Christmas break, but again, we never had a chance to work on stuff but they never give up, our energy, our fitness levels, our determination not to get beat was absolutely different class.
“But that’s one game. Now we’ve got another 11 games to now get three points, three points is a must on Saturday against TS Galaxy.
“They’ve had a break. We’ve got a game today and we got to travel tomorrow, so that’s a rest day and then Friday we’ve got to make sure that the players are ready for another tough game.”
