Sometimes I’m sitting and thinking…

Delmain Faver: It must have been quite an adjustment moving from Cape Town to Jo’burg…

Tashreeq Morris: I’ll be honest with you, my first three weeks, it wasn’t easy to try and adapt to the climate, as it was cold. It wasn’t easy, but you know football, it’s one language. I think you can go anywhere in Africa, it’s the same ball, the pitch is the same size, everything is the same. So, I adapted immediately. I went through the training sessions, then I figured out immediately what the club was about and I knew how the coach (Kaitano Tembo) wanted to play, what he expected, how he worked, how he was as a person. I’ve adapted quite quickly in that aspect and at this moment I’ve got my wife and my two kids living with me, so it’s the same as it was back home, if it makes sense to you. Because I go to training, I come home and I’ll be with my family. You won’t find me going here or going there, I’ll just be with them. If it is that I’m going somewhere, it would be taking them somewhere to the park or maybe the swimming pool, but I’m not someone you would find going out or whatever the case may be. It’s been quite good thus far – but the results haven’t been going our way. To be honest, I really don’t know why because if you do watch us, if you look at the amount of chances we are creating, it just seems sometimes the ball doesn’t wanna cross the goal line.

DF: The importance of having your family with you when playing ‘away from home’ is a plus. TM: I think it’s massive. To me, I think it’s very, very important, especially with the situation we find ourin selves now, even though whatever happens at the club, whatever happens on the field, whatever happen s, when I put my foot into my place I try and leave all of it behind because then it’s time for me to focus on my family and give my attention to them. My kids are still really young, so I try my best. At times, it’s really difficult. It gets frustrating knowing you played and you had to score (but didn’t), but then again, you have your kids with you, your wife with you. So, I think, especially for a footballer … I’m speaking now for myself … it has been very, very important because the support I’ve received from my wife and my family is massive. You know, as football ers, we go through a lot as well. It comes with a lot of pressure. People mig ht think, “No, this guy is going to training in the morning, coming back (at) 13h00, he’s got a nice life.” No, my friend, ha, ha, ha! It really comes with a lot of pressure.

You have to make sure that you sleep the right amount of time, you eat properly, and that is where being married comes in again. So, say, for instance, I’m staying by myself – not everyone is disciplined enough to know that he has to go home to prepare himself a meal that is beneficial for his recovery. Now you’re on your own, you’re driving home, on your way home you say, “Okay, I’m going to get a takeaway”, you understand? I’ve got my wife, she’ll prepare something in the morning and after training, something that would be beneficial for me because in football, you are not able to play for very long hey. Once they see that you hit 34 or 35, then teams feel like you are old. I think it’s really important to have that base and support structure.

DF: Babina Noko is blessed with some top strikers. Why, then, are you having a goalscoring issue?

TM: Look, what we can do, or what we have been doing, myself, Victor (Letsoalo), Tshego (Tshegofatso Mabasa), Wonderboy (Makhubu), Prince (Nxumalo) – all of us that are playing up front and the wingers – we’ve been doing extra training, finishing. We can only control what we can control. Like, me as an individual, I can only control being in the right place at the right

moment, making sure that I’m positioned properly to get to the end of every chance. We’ve been working on being clinical and on our first touch in the box. We’re putting in the work, results will come our way. Like you said, we’ve got quality strikers in our team, and personally, I back myself to score goals – I always have and I always will. I back myself because I know what I can do inside the box and then I can shoot from outside of the box as well. The same for Victor… we all back him; the same for Tshego, he backs himself, all of us back him; Wonderboy, the same; Prince, the same. Our wingers Abednego (Mosiatlhaga), Thamsanqa Masiya, all of those guys, just to mention a few… all of us, we back ourselves to score goals. We can only work hard, we can only put in the shift, put in the extra work, the extra minutes in our training. There is a greater power than all of us – God, so if the ball doesn’t cross the goal line, I don’t think we

have answers to that, the Man Above knows best.

DF: Speaking of Letsoalo and Mabasa, what’s it like playing with them?

TM:

Look, at first it was quite interesting because one of the formations that we do play, it’s only with one nine, but in some games the three of us found ourselves playing together in the same team because you’ve got Victor that can play on the left-hand side and you’ve got Tshego that can play on the left, up front and on the right-hand side. Look, playing with them makes it easier because they understand the roles of a striker, where the striker wants the ball because it’s how they would want to receive the ball as well. I think when we play together, we do gel in terms of combinations that we can play. But to be honest with you, the chances we’ve been creating, sometimes I’m sitting and I’m thinking, “But how did this one not go in? How did that one not go in?” I think that has been our first half of the season thus far. That is why we find ourselves in the position that we are in, so hopefully with the grace of the Almighty, going into the next round of the season, we will get some goals onto our names. I personally believe we will hit some team… I’m not sure which team, but we’re going to hit some team five or six.

“I’m not sure which team, but we’re going to hit some team five or six.”

DF: You reckon? TM:

In one of the games we play, you can mark my words, we’re going to hit one team maybe four or five.

DF: How frustrating is it when the goals just don’t come?

TM:

It’s very frustrating because at the end of the day, you were brought in here to score goals. I was brought to Sekhukhune to score goals and I think it’s the same for every other striker anywhere in the world. That is your bread and butter, so when you’re getting chances and you see it’s not happening, it’s not going in… as long as you know you’re in the right place at the right time, find yourself in the right pockets, in the right spaces when the ball goes wide, make sure that you make that run to the first post, make sure you are there. Other than that, to be more clinical, maybe yes, we can argue that. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what we are saying, even if it hits my shoulder, it’s going to be a goal next to my name. But it is very frustrating because… I don’t know how it is for every other player, but at night after the game, I can’t sleep because the game plays back in my head maybe 10 or 20 times. It plays back over and over and over each moment, every action I had on the field. So, it does get frustrating, it really does, especially now when you know that that one, normally, I finish that one.

DF: We can imagine that frustration must be boiling over to the technical team, as ultimately they are the ones judged when results aren’t forthcoming.

TM:

“I back myself because I know what I can do inside the box”

No, no, exactly. Coach Kaitano, coach Thabo (Senong), coach Macdonald (Makhubedu), even our physio (Denies Maja), all of them have been backing us. They still back us. They are always there to, maybe if I can say, even protect us. They are always there to motivate us. At Sekhukhune, you’ll find that it’s a thing at the club where everyone is motivating the players, everyone is backing the players, everyone is behind the players. If maybe you didn’t have a good game, you’ll find maybe six or seven guys coming to you and telling you that you did well, or things will happen for you. The coaches, the staff, everyone is backing the players, backing the strikers.