Tough exam for Students

Bidvest Wits winger Vincent Pule (above) says their MTN8 semifinal, second-leg tie at home to Cape Town City tomorrow will be a litmus test of how badly they want to continue with the success of last season.

The Clever Boys trail 1-0 after the first leg in Cape Town and have not had the best of starts to the season. Their only success in four league and cup matches came on penalties in the MTN8 quarterfinals against Golden Arrows.

“We all know that we haven’t really started well, but we have a very good team full of competitive players who want to win trophies for the club,” said the 25-year-old winger this week. “We won the league and we are the current MTN8 champions. We want to carry on with last season’s momentum and do better than we did last season. There are new players in the team who want to taste the success we had in the last campaign. Everyone is just going to push hard to make it a point that we go through to the final.”

During the first leg, the Students held their own, creating plenty of opportunities, and looked to be a better side than City for most of the match.

Goals, however, were missing for Gavin Hunt’s team and Benni McCarthy’s charges were able to find the back of the net in the first half, courtesy of an Ayanda Patosi strike.

Pule was introduced late in the second half to try and help Wits come back into the game. The former African Warriors player hopes to start tomorrow, but knows that it is not easy to break into the starting XI at Wits.

“There is a lot of quality in the team, you look at players like Daine Klate in my position. He is a fantastic player and I learn a lot from him. I just have to keep on working hard in training so that I can be selected for the game.”

Also see Page 45