Williams has another dreadful showing in national team jersey

PHOKENG: It may have been just a friendly, but goalkeeper Ronwen Williams made yet another Bafana Bafana appearance he will want to forget.

Having started the game between South Africa and Zambia at the Moruleng Stadium yesterday from the bench, the SuperSport United goalkeeper replaced Darren Keet at halftime with Bafana leading 1-0 and proceeded to concede twice – beaten at the near post by Brian Mwila for the first, while Lubinda Mundia capitalised from a defensive blunder to grab the lead in the 80th minute as Zambia emerged 2-1 winners.

Williams is no stranger to dreadful national team cameos. In March 2014, he was handed his debut against Brazil, who thrashed SA 5-0 at the FNB Stadium. Although he’s likely to be over it now, last night’s result, with the Zambian goals coming soon after he’d been thrown in as Keet made way, would have hurt his reputation.

Yesterday’s friendly turned out to be pretty decent for two sides who were possibly tired following contrasting fortunes in their opening 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers at the weekend.

As expected, both teams fielded fresh faces yesterday and the Zambians walked away the happier of the two sides, clawing their way back from a goal down to punish lacklustre defending and goalkeeping to end Bafana’s 18-match unbeaten run. Bafana could have edged it with a solitary goal from Lebogang Manyama, pictured, in the 23rd minute, his first for the national team and perhaps confirmation that he might just be ready for the international stage.

But Mwila cancelled it out deep into the second half as he beat Williams. The idea, as Baxter had revealed before and after the Nigeria game was to give every player he’d picked in his 25-man squad a chance to play. A victory may have been good for morale, while defeat calls for the coach to widen the pool of young and inexperienced players over the coming weeks.

Bafana’s back four failed to stay focussed in critical phases and were punished for it. Not a single player who started against Nigeria was on the pitch at kickoff.

Baxter now looks ahead to the Cosafa Cup early next month where he has said he will use the bulk of the Under20 national team that featured at the Junior World Cup in South Korea last month and bring in one or two veterans to guide them.