Mbazo still part of the plan - Pitso

THE absence of Bafana Bafana captain Aaron "Mbazo" Mokoena from the team that beat Kenya in an international friendly in Rustenburg on Wednesday does not mean the end of his international career.

Coach Pitso Mosimane started the match with the central defensive pairing of Siyabonga Sangweni and Bongani Khumalo. The latter was later taken off after an injury but still Mokoena did not come on, with Mosimane preferring Morgan Gould, Khumalo's former SuperSport United teammate.

But Mosimane insisted that his omission of Mokoena was not an issue.

"Aaron was not part of the team that played against the US and I played (Siyabonga) Sangweni, who did well. I decided to play him again (on Wednesday) and this is an opportunity for him to play regularly. He had to play for the sake of consistency and fairness, but Aaron is still part of our plans," Mosimane said.

He revealed that Mokoena and midfielder Kagisho Dikgacoi took the news that they would not be playing in their stride.

"I called them up and told them they would not be playing and they took it in good faith," he said.

The match was used as preparation for the crunch Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Egypt next month and Mosimane said his charges would have to be more ruthless against the Pharaohs.

"We played well but against Egypt we will need more.

"We haven't played in the past three months and it was bound to happen that we'd lose our sharpness in front of goal," he said.

Mosimane will need to pay more attention to his strikers after they fluffed numerous scoring chances.