“We don’t want to put ourselves under pressure by thinking too far ahead of ourselves. Our focus is on Black Leopards.”
BIDVEST Wits have mastered the art of remaining focused on the job at hand despite the stress that comes with being in the title race.
Though involved in continental competition, the Clever Boys are still in the Absa Premiership chasing pack. Though they trail leaders Kaizer Chiefs by 15 points, Gavin Hunt’s team still have four games in hand. The Clever have 30 points from 15 league matches.
They get the chance to narrow that gap by three points tonight (7.30pm kick-off) when they host Black Leopards in an Absa Premiership showdown.
Seasoned defender Sifiso Hlanti didn’t want to entertain talk of title aspirations when he interacted with Independent Media yesterday.
“We are taking it one game at a time. We are not thinking about the league title,” Hlanti said.
“We don’t want to put ourselves under pressure by thinking too far ahead of ourselves. Our focus is on Black Leopards.
“We are playing at home and therefore we need to collect maximum points. This season, we haven’t done well at home. That’s why we need to change that now and start collecting points on a consistent basis at home. The fact that we’ve done well away shows what we are capable of doing at home,” he added.
The Clever Boys have shown that they posses immense appetite to win trophies. They have lifted the league, MTN8 and the Telkom Knockout trophy since Hunt took over. Wits are a force to be reckoned with. That’s the reputation that they have created over the last few seasons.
“Our goal is to be competitive. Teams know that when they play us it is not going to be easy. That’s the reputation we want to build as a team. Other things will come as a bonus to us. For now, we want to be competitive,” Hlanti stated.
However, Wits are facing a Leopards outfit that is eager to move away from the foot of the table.
“We won’t underestimate Black Leopards. They are dangerous. This is a team that is fighting for their lives. There are no easy games at this stage of the season,” Hlanti continued.
Wits crumbled out of the CAF Confederation Cup group stages after finishing bottom of their group but are determined to treat the experience as a learning curve.
“We’ve learnt a lot from our journey in the CAF Confederation Cup. It was a great experience for us. We were sad that we didn’t progress to the next stage but there’s a lot of positives that we took from participating in that tournament.
“We played teams from different countries with different playing styles,” Hlanti concluded.
