Hunt bemoans lack of game intelligence

SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt has blamed lack of “game intelligence” for his team’s inconsistency this season while also giving young and inexperienced players a chance to prove their worth.

The exuberance of youth with a mixture of experienced and more accomplished players has been a hallmark of Matsatsantsa a Pitori this season.

The Tshwane-based club are third on the DStv Premiership standings and fighting for second position. They are still in the Nedbank Cup which is their only realistic chance of silverware this season after a bad run in the Caf Confederation Cup. They will play Stellenbosch FC in the quarterfinals of the Nedbank Cup.

“Those are things that young players need to learn,” Hunt bemoaned his young players’ inability to play without the ball.

“As I’ve said, we have played a lot of youngsters this year, more than anybody. It’s the future of the club and we have to do it so we will have dips in form but what they give is energy.

“They can really be good players if they do the other side of the game. They have to learn and that is the biggest problem in South African football, it’s game intelligence.” The 59-year-old coach has welcomed the international Fifa break which gives his charges a bit of a breather. Their next assignment will be a league encounter against Golden Arrows when the domestic schedule resumes.

“It will give us a little bit of training time because we’ve had no training time for two months now, “he said.

“We don’t train because we come in, do 30 minutes and then go back home as we travel a lot. In two weeks, we’ve been to Polokwane, Cape Town, Algeria and Durban. It’s just crazy so we’ve had a lot of ups and downs but I need to work with the players.”