Steve Barker Proud Of Stellenbosch’s Team Effort against Sundowns!

Steve Barker Proud Of Stellenbosch‘s Team Effort against Sundowns! Stellies lost 3-2 to Mamelodi Sundowns in the Nedbank Cup yesterday.

Sundowns eventually won the game in extra time. Ashley du Preez gave Stellies the lead in the first half.

The Brazilians overturned the score line to 2-1 in the dying embers of the game. Phathutshedzo Nange scored a last minute leveller.

This took the game into extra time. Namibian striker Peter Shalulile eventually scored the winner with 4 extra time minutes left to play.

“Ja, disappointed I thought we gave a good account of ourselves, we stuck to the game plan. Unfortunate not to take it to penalties, where obviously it’s a 50/50 opportunity for us,” Steve Barker told SuperSport TV.

“We’ve got past a really good team away from home so ja credit must go to the players for a really committed performance.

“First-half we had a couple of opportunities in behind, a little bit on transitions, second-half we sat a little bit deeper, I thought they were little bit running out of ideas and we were looking to sort of play on transition,” he added.

“Then they scored close to full-time, I thought that was game over and we scored with the last kick of the 90, went into extra-time.

“I thought we coped well, they didn’t look like they were really going to create anything and obviously they are able to bring in a lot of firepower and we sort of looked to maintain our composure, compactness and hopefully create a chance here or there.

“And they got the winner, which turned out to be, again we had a final chance to make it 3-3. But overall we came up against a really good team but I thought we did some really nice things, we need to take this forward and build from it,” the Stellies coach concluded.

Steve Barker Proud Of Stellenbosch’s Team Effort against Sundowns!