Marumo Gallants incumbent coach Dylan Kerr has revealed that their positive run in the CAF Confederations Cup has given his side confidence for their Nedbank Cup clash with Mamelodi Sundowns and the relegation battle.
Gallants have been doing well ever since Kerr took over, although officially he’s only been named a “consultant”, while assistant coach Raymond Mdaka moved to the interim head coach role after Dan Malesela was placed on special leave – with the arrangement set to continue until Kerr has his work permit.
Bahlabane Ba Ntwa having won four of the five games since the technical team changes and only lost to Algerian side USM Alger in the CAF Confederation Cup group stages.
“So far, we’re keeping our feet firmly on the ground. We’ve got four wins, we got one defeat in Algiers – a very, very tough opponent, a very intimidating atmosphere,”Kerr told iDiski Times.
“A team that is so far ahead of us in cup competitions in CAF, we gave a great account of ourselves, playing there on Sunday.
“With a bit more fear that we had, we gave a good account of ourselves. We gave Algiers a good game. The positive feedback from the press in Algiers of how good the team were and surprisingly how we took the game to them was very positive.”
Kerr also insisted they’ll take it one game at a time, with a tough Nedbank Cup clash against defending champions Mamelodi Sundowns awaiting them on Thursday, even though moving up the DStv Premiership table remains their ultimate target.
“Relegation, we’re not talking about anything relegation. We’re concentrating on the Nedbank Cup.
“And then we will deal with the game on Sunday against TS Galaxy, which is very, very important.
“So far the atmosphere has been amazing, we’ve been in a tough situation in the last few weeks. But there’s positive things coming out of this camp and hopefully we will get the results needed and push up the table.”
Gallants are sitting at the bottom of the DStv Premiership table, three points behind Maritzburg United in the relegation/promotion playoff and six points behind safety.
On Sunday they will face TS Galaxy in their continuation to fight for survival.
