Bafana Bafana midfielder Ethan Brooks wants to use the experience he gained in the Cosafa Cup last year and guide the national team to success in this year’s edition.

The tournament will be hosted in Durban from tomorrow to July 17 and will be played at King Zwelithini, Princess Magogo and Moses Mabhida stadiums.

As one of the highest-ranked sides, Bafana, who are also the defending champions, will only start their defence for the title in the quarterfinals, where they will face Mozambique on July 13.

Brooks, who was part of the tournament last year when Bafana went all the way to win it, said he will use that experience to also guide other young players who will be taking part in the tournament for the first time.

“It was a great experience for me last year. It was very great for me... I got to learn a lot from older players and the tournament itself,” Brooks told the Safa media department yesterday.

“Going into this one, I got guys my age and it will also be a great experience for them as well. We are going to play against guys bigger and older than us but it will be a great.”

The 21-year-old, who joined AmaZulu from TS Galaxy recently added that they will go into this tournament with the same winning mentality they had last year.

“I think we had a winning mentality from day one; when we walked in everyone understood what we wanted to achieve,” he said.

“And that was going into the tournament to win it and I feel like that should be our mandate as well going into this one, to defend the title.

“I would like to score that’s one achievement that I have wanted to achieve in the league and I also want to achieve in the tournament.”