SAILING THE HIGH SEAS
ON THE UP: PIRATES IN A CONFIDENT MOOD AHEAD OF STELLIES CLASH
Buccaneers seek more consistency if they are to finish in the top three in the Premiership.
Orlando Pirates will be travelling to Cape Town with their confidence high for a DStv Premiership meeting with Stellenbosch FC at the Danie Craven Stadium today.
The Buccaneers bounced back to winning ways with an impressive 3-0 thrashing of Black Leopards in their last league game, following a similar thumping in their previous match at the hands of league leaders Mamelodi Sundowns.
Pirates haven’t been consistent in the league, with their hopes of challenging for the DStv Premiership title fading away.
They currently trail Sundowns by 15 points, with only five league games left to play.
The Buccaneers are still being hindered by a number of injuries, which saw a lot of changes in coach Josef Zinnbauer’s line-up in their previous game.
Nkanyiso Zungu, Abel Mabaso and Siphesihle Ndlovu started in midfield for Pirates, while Thabang Monare is recovering from an injury and Ben Motshwari was on the bench.
Another notable change was the return of Wayde Jooste at right-back, and the defender ended up walking away with a Manof-the-Match accolade after a top performance against Leopards.
With a few games left to the end of the Caf campaign, Jooste is determined to continue getting game time and says he wants to see the team climbing up the league table.
“Personally, I just want to play as much as I can in these last few games. For the club, I hope we can climb as high as we can on the log.
We’re also still in the Caf Confederation Cup (Pirates play their quarterfinal, first leg match against Raja Casablanca on Sunday), so there’s a lot to play for there as well,” said the Bucs defender.
Stellies, meanwhile, are going through tough times with the team having not won a game in their last eight fixtures.
They last won a match back in March, when they defeated Baroka FC 3-1.
The Mother City- based club, curremtly 12th on the log, held Pirates to a 1-1 draw in their previous league meeting earlier in the season.