Sundowns players to suffer hard training following 3-0 loss

Rhulani Mokwena has revealed that they will train hard this week after a humiliating 3-0 defeat at the hands of a lowly Stellenbosch FC this past weekend. Sundowns were playing their last league game at home and were expected to give their fans a charming goodbye before flying to Durban for their 30th game with the in-form Royal AM.

“It’s like one of those that happens in football, congratulations to coach Steve Barker. If it has to happen then I’d rather it happen to Coach Barker because he’s an incredible gentleman, an incredible servant and what a story because a lot of the history that he has made has been on this pitch.” Masandawana’s Co-Coach Rhulani Mokwena congratulated his opponents after the game.

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After closing the league chapter with Thwihli Thwahla on Saturday, Sundowns will then shift focus onto the Nedbank final that will see them combat with Marumo Gallants on 28 May.

“This week we have to train like a team that has lost 3-0 and train very, very hard and knuckle down and try to prepare ourselves for what’s gonna be very difficult two games to go before the season ends. It’s very important that we go to our next matches and try our level best to win so that we end the season on a very good note and to win so that we can prepare ourselves for a very, very difficult match that’s coming ahead.

“I think today was a day of the unfamiliar. We don’t defend like that, we don’t concede goals like that [and] unfamiliar because our supporters generally don’t sing after we concede but today they were magnificent. The results also go to show that what we’ve done this season has been incredible. Today it shows that to win games in the Premier League and to be consistent it’s not as easy as people think and we’ve done that.”

Sundowns won the league this season with four games to spare and Mokwena says they knew that the remaining games would be hard to play without emotions.

“We said that when we won the league that the last 3 to 4 games are gonna be difficult because football without emotions is not football. Once you’ve won the league then there’s no intrinsic motivation to do more, to run more, or to try more but I think the players, even with the temptation to give up towards the end of the second half, really tried. We lost the game because we made a lot of mistakes and the score is not a true reflection of the performance because we dominated, we created enough chances.” Coach Rhulani gave an analysis of the encounter.

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“[We had] 19 shots and they had 3 shots on targets which became goals. We had 24 box entries [which] we haven’t had the entire season and that was because we conceded a very soft goal at the beginning where we could’ve defended better, then we got the second against us because we had to push the game and try to influence the intensity by pushing the defensive line.”