HUNT HEDGING HIS BETS
PREMIERSHIP RACE: ‘LET’S WAIT UNTIL EVERYONE HAS PLAYED THE SAME’
Any one of five teams can clinch this year’s crown.
Gavin Hunt is hopeful he’ll have winger Daine Klate back for tomorrow’s key Absa Premiership meeting with title rivals Cape Town City.
Wits are third in the table and trail leaders City and Kaizer Chiefs by a point, but have two games in hand on Eric Tinkler’s men and three in hand on Chiefs.
“Daine, possibly, I don’t know if he will play, but he is running,” said Hunt yesterday, adding that midfielder Thabang Monare is also expected to be back in training with the side today.
Monare limped out of Wits’ last league game, a 3-0 win at home to Golden Arrows. Wits have a long injury list that also includes Granwald Scott, Xola Mlambo and James Keene.
“It is the normal story, it has been difficult to keep the team together,” added Hunt.
Wits have just returned from Alexandria, where they were knocked out of the Caf Confederation Cup by Egyptian side Smouha, suffering a 1-0 defeat on Saturday and going out on aggregate by the same scoreline.
Hunt describe the match as a “nightmare, disgusting, a joke,” apparently referring to the officiating.
“In both games in Egypt we got handled,” he said, in reference also to Wits’ Champions League play-off first leg match at Al-Ahly, which they also lost 1-0.
“We complain about the officials in South Africa but they are fantastic compared to what we have in the rest of Africa.”
Hunt indicated that he attempted to prove his point in Alexandria by making an extended effort to receive his marching orders.
“I tried to get sent off (in Alexandria), I threw a water bottle at the linesman, I threw water at the linesman, I walked right on to the field, but nothing,” said the Wits coach, who refused to be bitter about the fact that Wits play City just a few days after getting back from Egypt.
“We always knew the programme,” he said.
Hunt also does not regard City’s charge to the top of the table as overly surprising.
“They are just having a good season, they have made one or two additions but they are already a good side. He (Eric Tinkler) has done fantastically, but like I said they have not built from scratch.”
Hunt says it is hard to pick a favourite for the title while the five teams involved in the race have not played the same amount of games.
“Let’s wait until everyone has played the same,” he said.