Thanks to the SABC blackout on Wednesday night, Shakes Mashaba was not under the microscope in Bafana Bafana's away 3-1 thumping of Swaziland at the Somhlolo Stadium.

But the spotlight will be inevitable on Sunday when the national team - with all due respect to Swaziland - face much stronger opponents Nigeria.

Mashaba might be slightly ignorant of the fact that the honeymoon period is over. And it was partly ended by his questionable tactics at the Africa Cup of Nations.

The Super Eagles, 2013 African champions, offer Mashaba a chance to turn over the page. Redemption is on the cards here, as well as an opportunity for the coach to show his hand.

He's been in the hot seat long enough and a settled team is needed. Mashaba, despite his many faults coming to light at the Nations Cup, remains much loved.

However, it is the kind of love with limits, not the one the Bible goes on about; you know - patient, kind, not insisting on its own ways and not irritable. No, fickle South Africans want to see a team that can match Nigeria without being an experimental side.

If he employs yet another rotation system, like the bewildering choice to pick three different goalkeepers in all of Bafana's Nations Cup games, Mashaba runs the risk of testing everyone's tolerance level.

On Sunday, Mashaba needs to prove on the pitch that he is indeed the right man for the job, like he argued earlier in the week when he lambasted his critics, and can take Bafana all the way to "winning the 2022 World Cup" - his own words, not mine.

There has been a growing annoyance at the fact that it's hard to predict the make-up of the Bafana team.

For a while, Mashaba could ride the wave of his whimsical ways, playing that as his wildcard during the Nations Cup qualifiers last year.

When it didn't work in Equatorial Guinea, where the tournament proper was staged and Bafana were booted out in the group stages having not won a single match, Mashaba's trump card was torn to shreds.

You need not look any further than his employers twisting his arm to bring back Thulani Serero, May Mahlangu, Kamohelo Mokotjo and Ayanda Patosi to his Bafana squad to see the coach needs to build trust.

He sidelined the quartet in favour of domestic Premier Soccer League material - which was not necessarily a frightening decision - but Mashaba just didn't know how to make it work at times, chopping and changing at will.

Then there's the coach's paranoia. Mashaba does not need to be reminded that his predecessors obsessed over what the newspapers had to say during their tenure.

Mashaba has started the trend way too early, but it is not too late to ditch the collage of articles on the road to redemption.