Johannesburg – After getting his first taste of goal this season, Wits midfielder Sibusiso Vilakazi thanked the rest of his team for sticking with him and keeping the faith.
Last season’s Player of the Season scored his first goals of the campaign with a well-taken hat-trick to help Wits climb up to second in the Premiership standings thanks to a 4-2 win at home against Ajax Cape Town on Wednesday evening.
“Credit must be given to my teammates and my coach as well. He’s been pushing me when I was injured and out,” Vilakazi said afterwards.
“It was a good win for the team and I hope I can continue from this.
“I have my teammates to help me as we try to keep up with the team on top.”
Vilakazi scored his first league goal since April in the opening 45 before adding two more to seal a comfortable win for the Clever Boys, to remain in touch with runaway league-leaders Kaizer Chiefs.
Eleven points separate Chiefs and Wits, while Mamelodi Sundowns are a further two points adrift but have a game in hand, meaning the Brazilians could reclaim second spot.
For now, however, Gavin Hunt is happy to be back in the top two.
“We scored some good goals, played some good stuff,” a reserved Hunt said after the game at Bidvest Stadium.
Hunt admitted a change in tactics allowed the visitors more space, but added that he was pleased his ploy to allow Ajax more of the ball paid off.
“We tried to do what teams do to us at home. Everybody sits off us, so we thought, well we’ll sit off and we’ll try and place in the space a bit more,” he said.
“We tried to create a bit more space because we haven’t created enough when we play at home.
“I went the other way tonight, we dropped off and gave them 10 or 15 metres and played differently. I thought it was much better.
“We let them have the ball. At home we’ve been struggling because we’ve been going in and playing on the front foot. Even Chiefs last week. They hurt us three times from three counters, so we dropped off a couple of metres tonight and try and play a different way.”
Former Wits boss, Roger De Sa, meanwhile, praised his young Ajax outfit for fighting to the end, but conceded that the team made far too many basic errors.
“We shouldn't have conceded the goals we did,” De Sa said.
“We gave some of the youngsters a chance tonight and they tried their best. We had to play catch-up football but the effort was great from my kids.” – Sapa