The Northern Cape squad had briefly sat at position four on the log prior to the SA football Association imposing the break this season.
THE NORTHERN Cape’s semi-professional women’s team Richmond United FC have slumped to 10th place on the Hollywoodbets Super League after a 5-1 loss to Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies in Pretoria at the weekend in their first match played after a mandatory five-week Covid-19 imposed rest period..
The league log setback was particularly severe as the Northern Cape squad had briefly sat at position four on the log prior to the SA football Association imposing the break this season.
Richmond United’s rise has been meteoric this season despite their present predicament. Their rise was due to them acquiring the services of a full-time, professional coach in Edwin ‘MaGents’ Lisene from Bloemfontein Celtic Ladies at the beginning of the the season.
That apart, this year the team also received a technical support boost from an international solar energy company who picked up a sizable portion of the team’s overheads tab. That same company also installed a state of the art playing turf at the team’s home base in De Aar.
Thus far the Richmond side have conceded 30 goals which is 10 more than they scored against opponents (20) after their 12 games in the 14-team league.
Lisene, however, said he was not surprised at the team’s downward movement.
“We play with a lot of youngsters in the squad who are still at school and tertiary level. This means we chop and change especially our strike force quite frequently to make up for the unavailability of a player who misses tactical training sessions owing to the varying time tables at their institution.
“The result is that though we score against our opponents we do not defend the gains properly.
“The issue with replacing a player at any position in our team is that we will likely feature an untested player who will be nervous on the pitch as they try to find their place. As things stand we are really in a situation where we are essentially trying to stay off the relegation zone even though there won’t be any relegation and promotion this year.
“At the same time we’re preparing the team for the next season where we hope to have more stability in the squad,” he added.
Safa praised the women’s league’s performance this past weekend and reported that: “a total 20 goals were netted during week 12 of the Hollywoodbets Super League matches across the country”.
Lisene was on Monday preparing to take the squad through its paces this week in readiness for next Saturday’s game where they will host fifth placed JVW Stars.
