JOHANNESBURG – Baroka FC coach Dylan Kerr is relishing the prospect of sitting on the bench for the first time for Bakgaga when they take on Highlands Park at Makhulong Stadium tomorrow.
Kerr has cut a frustrated figure on the stands, watching helplessly as Bakgaga gets drawn deeper into the relegation scrap while typing furiously on his phone in an attempt to pass on instructions with assistant coach Matsimela Thoka, who has been handling things in the interim.
Kerr will pass on instructions himself tomorrow when Baroka take on the Lions of the North, who are just three points ahead of the Limpopo side.
“It’s a relief, but now the pressure is even more because I am on the bench,” Kerr said. “The results now have to come. You can’t predict games, or whether how things will turn out because you are sitting on the stands or the bench.
“But everybody who has sat with me on the bench knows what I am about, I am positive, and I hate when we have to play backwards all the time.
“I like having good fluidity in the game. Because if you move the ball quickly, you will move defenders and if you move defenders, you’ll create chances and holes for players to run in.”
Baroka appointed Kerr on the last day of the year last year. He has been forced to watch five games on the stands.
The Limpopo side lost three of those games and won two - a Limpopo derby against Polokwane City and their last match against Maritzburg United.
The win over the Team of Choice will give the side confidence going in what will be a dogfight in the fight to avoid relegation.
Bakgaga are three points ahead of the last-placed AmaZulu with both teams having played 20 matches.
The 10 remaining matches will offer Kerr an opportunity to ensure that Limpopo has a team in the Premier Soccer League next year with all three teams in danger of getting the axe.
Even though there is time for him to save the team, he does look back at the three losses the team suffered with him on the stands with disappointment.
“I believe that if I had been on the bench from day one, we would have been in a much healthier position, we would have definitely won the three games that we lost,” Kerr said.
“I pride myself in organisation, and I work very, very hard doing the analysis myself. I haven’t got a video analyst or the luxury of two or three guys watching the game, if I don’t do my job right and do the analysis myself, others might not see what I see.
“The three games that we lost, we conceded three set-pieces. One of the things that I do when we get a set-piece or concede it is to make sure that I get us on our toes, and we are the first to the ball.
“Being up in the stands, I wasn’t able to do that.”