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WSU out to continue fine run in Varsity Shield
After two consecutive victories, Walter Sisulu University All Blacks caretaker coach Akhona Mgijima is still seeing “grey areas that need to be fixed” as they continue with their Varsity Shield campaign.
All Blacks beat Madibaz 19-14 at the Madibaz Stadium in Port Elizabeth on Friday evening and Mgijima had good things to say about his side, but he also highlighted a few aspects of their game which they needed to work on to keep the positive results coming in.
“The boys showed more hunger and they controlled the game from the first whistle blow. Especially in the first half, we had total dominance of ball possession.
“We wanted the victory more and the effort our guys put into the game showed that,” Mgijima said.
Although Mgijma’s charges showed character as they cruised through their second victory of the season, Mgijima said he was not entirely impressed with how they handled themselves in the final third of the pitch.
“There were areas where we did not particularly play very well and there were areas where we could have performed better in — like our finishing.
“We camped in the opposition’s half for a very long time, but we were unable to capitalise on that — which is an area we still need to work on — being lethal in the final third of the pitch and make sure that we convert opportunities presented to us during a game.
“But with that said, we welcome the win — the second one in a row but that means nothing to us because things change very quickly in this game.
“We planned well for Madibaz and the boys did well by sticking to the game plan — which was to frustrate Madibaz by starving them of the ball.
“And it worked because when they got the ball from us, they couldn’t do much damage to us, and that’s a hard lesson they taught a couple of years back,” said Mgijima.
The All Blacks will now host arch-rivals University of Fort Hare Blues on Friday evening at the Buffalo City Stadium in what should be a cracking encounter between the two sides.
“This is only the beginning and we have to take each game as it comes. We are playing against strong teams each and every time. You see how Blues did against Rhodes.
“So it’s definitely going to be a different ball game. We’ve got to focus on improving those areas before we play Blues. That is going to be one of the toughest games we are going to play but the boys are responding well to their training and hopefully we will remain humble.”
The Blues opened their Varsity Shield campaign with a resounding 52-7 victory against Rhodes University at the Madibaz ground also on Friday.
Though against one of the weaker teams in the competition it was certainly a statement of intent from the rampant Blues and they will be eager to back that up when they come face-to-face with the WSU All Blacks.