Some might say it’s ambitious, far-fetched and impossible… but don’t put it past Greenwood Athletic’s ‘new’ head coach Lionel Miller to transform his outfit into potential title challengers in the Hollywoodbets Third Division campaign as there are still plenty of matches left for a resurgence.
Miller will downplay this thought as he wouldn’t want to put himself and his troops under enormous pressure, but one cannot deny the immediate impact ‘Pony,’ as Miller is called, is having on the Retreat-based outfit.
Since his reappointment two weeks ago, Miller has steadied the ship and accumulated seven points from their previous four games which include two wins, one draw and a loss.
Miller’s latest heroic effort led the Green Machine to another impressive 3-2 victory over one of the favourites, Cape Town City, at the Solo Street Astroturf on Wednesday to move up the 14th position – four points off the drop zone.
It was a heated affair with tackles flying in and no less than eight cards were dished out, not to mention the home side squandering numerous chances to bury the young Citizens early on.
Miller said it was a case of doing their ”homework” against the much more fancied academy outfit and fought their way back with a magical second-half performance which sent the Greenwood faithful into a crazy frenzy.
“This showed in our performance as we stood toe-to-toe with them,” Miller explained to No Bones with Jones. “They like to knock the ball (around) and draw you out and play from the back. But this time round we were more organised, focussed, we concentrated well.
“We gave away two silly goals in the first half which I believe still belonged to us because of the chances we had. I counted about five to six clear-cut chances we had. We spoke about it at halftime and the message to the boys was, that we can’t just give away three points at Solo.
“We did what we had to and never gave up – but that is what we do at Solo. Hulle weet nie wat ons weet nie (They don’t know what we know). We had to tweak a bit here and there but again Warren (Lotters) did a great job before me. It was just a pity that the result was not coming, you know.
“The ex-coach did have a fantastic team, it was just a matter of turning their mentalities around. We said we are not giving anything away at our home ground as it is tough on the road,” Miller concluded.
