Bucks coach not pleased

MTHATHA Bucks coach Ian Palmer was disappointed with the 1-1 National First Division draw against Witbank Spurs at the Mthatha Stadium at the weekend.

Palmer said getting a draw at home did not bode well for his charges since they could have earned two more points. However, he was not worried at this stage as his boys were still gelling.

“We need to win our home games . . . you know, that’s vital to us because it’s always difficult playing away. We also let ourselves down by missing the chances we had.

“I went and did my homework because last week I watched Spurs play and they always provide new faces.

“There’s a [Spurs] player who I think committed a handball, but unfortunately I could not see whether that was truly a handball or not because there’s no TV.”

Palmer said the result was nothing to worry about as they just signed 17 new players this season and there is still plenty of game time coming.

“They are still in that phase of becoming a unit – which they are not far from – but overall, I’m happy with that even though we are not happy with the result.

“We were glad that they chose to play with the wind even though we wanted to play with the wind because this is not PE [Port Elizabeth] where the wind blows all day and we knew it was going to die down,” the former Orlando Pirates striker said.

He continued: “We should have used those conditions to our advantage, especially in the first half.”

Spurs coach Obinna Okafor said he did not anticipate the stubbornness they got from Amatholamnyama warning that not many teams were going to come out victorious at the Mthatha Stadium as he saw a tough and welloiled team.

“In the first half, they were on top of us and were really better than us in terms of moving the ball and we did not get out of our half or take advantage of the wind. We kept on moving backwards.”

Okafor said during the second half they improved their tactics to intensify their defence effort and hopefully gain a strategy to move forward.

“We wanted to make sure they cannot play theway they played in the first half because we continued to lose the ball easily.”

He applauded his goalkeeper Dumsani Msibi who kept his side in the game with some brilliant saves.

“I think he had a very good game today. He played quite well, I must say. So eventually I think we could have stolen it from Bucks right from the start when we played two shots that went wide.

“We could have made a difference, but all in all I am happy with the draw because its not many teams that are going to come out of this place alive,” said Okafour, laughing with relief.

Mpho Erasmus opened the scoring the 89th minute in what many thought was enough for the win, but Quentin Debouto pulled one back a minute later to ensure a share of the spoils.