Cape Town - Ajax Cape Town have yet to win a competitive match out of six this season, and intend to use any tool to improve matters – such as not cutting the grass!
That ploy is going to be part of the plan for Wednesday’s Premiership clash against MTN8 champions Wits, who are smarting from a 3-1 defeat to Free State Stars in the Telkom Knockout at the weekend.
Ajax extended their winless run to six games by going down 1-0 to SuperSport United in Atteridgeville on Saturday night in a match that was suspended for almost 30 minutes in extra time due to a heavy storm.
So not only was it a long night for the Urban Warriors in Gauteng, but they were unable to break their duck as well as they were knocked out of a cup competition.
It’s all about the league now for coach Roger de Sa and his team, and they will do anything to cause an upset and get the three points against Wits at the Cape Town Stadium on Wednesday (7.30pm kickoff).
And part of the strategy will be to frustrate Hunt even further after the Wits boss expressed his unhappiness with the pitch the last time his team visited the Mother City, for the MTN8 second leg semi-final on September 17, which ended in a dour goalless draw that his team dominated.
“We could’ve played until next week and we wouldn’t have scored! Maybe even the week after, we wouldn’t have scored. The final pass let us down,” Hunt said at the time. “We got through and we did what we had to do – the pitch was really long, and it doesn’t look like they have a lawnmower in Cape Town!”
And it seems as if that lawnmower will go missing again before Wednesday’s clash with Ajax. “One thing I can tell you is that we are not going to cut the grass! He asked (the last time) if we didn’t have a lawnmower here. So we’ve made that we’ve put the lawnmower away!” De Sa said this week.
“It (not winning in a particular city) can be a bit of a factor. We have a bit of a block in Durban because we’ve never won in Durban – it becomes a little bit of a… You walk into that change room and think ‘Here we go’.
“But having said that, on the other side of things, there’s a burning desire to turn that over, to overcome that, and sometimes it makes you work even harder and better. So, I hope it continues (for Wits).”
Ajax, though, will have to do something special on the pitch to get the better of Hunt’s slick outfit that boasts a variety of attacking talents such as Daine Klate, Elias Pelembe, incumbent Bafana Bafana striker Eleazar Rodgers and bustling front-man Gabadinho Mhango.
The Cape side are missing some of their top players through injury, with Nathan Paulse, Toriq Losper and Lebohang “Cheeseboy” Mokoena all unavailable, but De Sa is hopeful that Prince Nxumalo and Joaquin “Jucie” Lupeta can get amongst the goals.
“We started off with the three strikers – Paulse, Lupeta and Prince. Morris has always been a kind of fourth stand-in striker. With Nathan finding good form at the beginning of the season, we also had Prince and Lupeta picking up injuries in the pre-season,” the coach said.
“It opened the door for Nathan and he did pretty well. Prince had the illness which put him in hospital for a couple of weeks, and Lupeta’s hamstring has just come right. So it’s been a bit of a juggling act, and Prince did show good signs at training despite not being 100 percent fit. Prince is probably leading the pack, but Lupeta is hot on his heels.
“I might sound biased, but I don’t think our performances have been bad – we’ve had some bad moments along the way, but overall, we have sat and thought we could’ve won every game. There hasn’t been a single match where we thought we were well-beaten and outplayed.”
@ashfakmohamed
Independent Media