Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Jomo Cosmos are bracing themselves for a tough Castle Premiership game against Platinum Stars at Mehlareng Stadium in Tembisa on Sunday.

"Owen Da Gama [Stars' coach] has assembled a great team this season, they play excellent soccer," said Andrew Rabutla, Cosmos' manager.

"In fact, Stars have always given us problems in the past until we finally defeated them during the SAA Supa 8 match on penalties last month.

"We are gearing ourselves for a tough game. Everything is going well. We expect Stars to come strong at us like a ton of bricks.

"We have recovered from the [1-0] defeat by Ajax Cape Town and everybody is looking forward to doing well against Stars. I think we will go home with something if we continue from where we left off against Ajax, soon after Morgan Gould was sent off.

"Our performance was great, we were just unlucky not to get a goal," said Rabutla, who also announced that Liberian Anthony Laffour was injured (ankle).

In the absence of Gould, coach Jomo Sono and his technical staff are expected to retain Namibian Wycliff Kambonde.

Thamaga Mokgopi, Stars' manager, said: "I have always had great respect for Jomo. In fact, he was my role model during his playing days.

"We know that it will be a difficult one but we are going to fight to the bitter end for a win. The technical staff and players are looking forward to the game."

The spotlight on this game is expected to be in the middle of the park where Bamuza Sono of Cosmos and Stanley Kgatla of Stars will be calling the tune.