Seaside Spurs (pictured) coach Gerald Stober strongly believes that his side have certainly not disgraced themselves against the defending regional Nedbank Champion Maties FC.
Stober’s comments come after the ABC Motsepe League debutant was edged out 3-2 (3-1) by coach Desmond Crowie’s Maties at the Ocean View Sports Complex on Saturday afternoon.
Seaside, who was without a number of players, had a goal disallowed just before halftime to narrow the deficit to one goal after Ryan Serfontein.
Furthermore, Stober feels that his side also did themselves no favours when they gifted the visitors the opening goal.
“That was in the first two or three minutes when we made a bad pass in the box and they pounced on that, you know,” Stober told No Bones with Jones. “In the second half I won’t say that we were well in control but they did not pose a lot of threat or play us off the park. Overall, we could have had the edge but it wasn’t to be. It wasn’t a baptism of fire from where I stood”.
Stober, who gave a number of debuts to his new recruits to further gauge and fine tune his squad, admitted they were slow out of the blocks but this is largely through nerves of the unknown.
“I could see the tension in the dressing room before the game,” Stober added. “But we were much better in the second half. I wouldn’t say that my players were out of their depth, you know. But look I am just glad this game is out of the way and now we can focus on the league,” the former Orlando Pirates striker concluded.
Maties’ mentor Crowie has already expressed his desire to go one further in the competition following their regional title they won against FN Rangers last season. They have now set-up a home tie at their Lentelus home ground against Royal Blues from Beaufort West on Saturday.
Other Nedbank Cup results.
Royal Blues 2, Ubuntu Spartans 1
FN Rangers 2, Junction Rovers 0
Mbekweni Cosmos 2, Ammar Soccer Academy 1
Oriented Birds 2, Salim United 0
