Cape Town – There was a time in South African football when it was the blue half of the nation's capital Tshwane that had everyone quaking in their boots.
SuperSport United were the undisputed rulers of the local game from 2007 through to 2010 when they won a hat-trick of Dstv Premiership titles.
The throne has now though been unequivocally passed on to the yellow half of the city with Mamelodi Sundowns holding sway. Sundowns have won four consecutive Premiership titles and are on target for a unprecedented fifth championship, having stretched their record unbeaten start to 11 matches now thus far this season.
They are the overwhelming favourites for Wednesday's Tshwane derby against SuperSport, particularly with their arch-rivals going down to league-strugglers Marumo Gallants in their last match.
SuperSport United and Bafana Bafana skipper Rowen Williams knows they need to improve drastically from their last match in order not to get "smashed" in the Tshwane derby at Loftus Versveld.
"Obviously we're coming off a very disappointing result – a defeat at home. We disappointed with the whole outcome of the game. We didn't apply ourselves like we know we can," Williams said.
"The performance, the effort wasn't there and we got what we rightfully deserved, which was a defeat. We have a lot of things we need to fix. We have worked hard and we have analysed it and we know the effort wasn't good and we need to fix it otherwise we will get smashed in our next game.
"Coming up against Sundowns, they are obviously the champions, they have been doing well throughout the season. They haven't conceded which shows the work they have been putting in on the training grounds."
Williams, though, was adamant that SuperSport would not just roll over in the derby and hand the points to The Brazilians as they are prepared to go to war on Wednesday.
"We are going out there to fight. We have our own ambitions and our own targets. Obviously we let ourselves down in our previous game, especially losing at home.
"But we want to go out there and rectify our mistakes and give a better account of ourselves. We going to fight and battle and make it easy for them. We need to get points and close the gap."
SuperSport's chances of producing an upset has been further reduced with the unavailablity of central defender Buhle Mkhwanazi, who got injured during the Gallants tie. The Swanky Boys are also sweating on the fitness of influential midfielder Teboho Mokoena, who is suffering from fatigue after putting in some industrious shifts for Bafana Bafana in the recent Fifa World Cup qualifiers.
"Buhle got injured, I am not really sure about the extent of his injury. But with Tebza (Mokoena), he has been playing a lot of football, the travelling. He never really had a break, you could see in the first half he was a little bit sluggish, very slow and slow and looked fatigued," SuperSport United coach Kaitano Tembo said.
IOL Sport