Bafana Bafana have been giving themselves every chance of succeeding in the Cosafa Cup - another training match against University of Johannesburg this week to help integrate some late-comers to the squad.

South Africa open their tournament with Sunday's quarterfinal against Botswana at Moruleng Stadium (5.30pm).

Coach Shakes Mashaba has had to replace three injured players - Polokwane City striker Puleng Tlolane, SuperSport United midfielder Athenkosi Dlala, and Polokwane midfielder Cole Alexander.

Platinum Stars winger Tlou Segolela and midfield teammate Mduduzi Nyanda, and SuperSport forward Lebogang Manyama bring in plenty of pace and skill as their replacements. In a sign of how seriously the SA technical team are taking the Cosafa Cup, they certainly gave the team plenty of match practice.

The training game against UJ's SAB League (fourth division) team on Tuesday followed away practice games against Lesotho.

"The main objective was to just give our boys a mental boost of scoring goals," assistant coach Thabo Senong said yesterday.

"Two goals were scored and we won the game. And also to integrate the new players who came in - Nyanda and Manyama got a run. And to see some combinations going forward.

"It's day 10 of our camp. We were impressed with the Lesotho games, drawing 0-0 and 1-1. Maybe the finishing was just an issue. But of course, it's still a work in progress."

Bafana Bafana keeper Jackson Mabokgwane, who played a game in the Africa Cup of Nations in Equatorial Guinea in January, said SA are concentrating on their own strengths.

"For me, to say it's a full-strength or non-full-strength SA team would not be fair because all players are selected for the national team on merit and no player owns a jersey," he said.