The 3-2 win over provincial foes City came courtesy of goals from Banele Gama, Rhulani Manzini and Tatenda Tavenga. Reflecting on the victory, Masutha said they had to dig deep to get the three points in front of the packed Thohoyandou Stadium.
“Polokwane City is a team that is fighting for promotion. We knew it was not going to be easy. We knew we had to bring our A game. We dug very deep to get those three points,” he said.
“It was an important win, it was important for us to get three points. We have been trying to survive relegation, we need as many points as we can get to move away from the bottom-two teams. We are not relying on other teams to do us favours.
“I still think we are in a relegation battle right now, we are not safe yet. We’ll focus on survival and when we are mathematically safe, then we’ll look at next season,” Masutha said.
NFD results: Cape Town Spurs 1 - 2 Pretoria Caillies, Venda FA 3 - 2 Polokwane City; Baroka 0 - 1 JDR Stars; Uthongathi 3 - 0 TTM; Black Leopards 1 - 1 Casric Stars; All Stars 3 - 0 Hungry Lions; NB La Masia 0 - 1 Magesi; Platinum City Rovers 0 - 1 Pretoria University.
Back-to-back victories boost bid to avoid relegation
Bucs tie set VFA on winning path - coach
Image: Gallo Images
Venda Football Academy (VFA) coach Joel Masutha has credited their Nedbank Cup last 16 tie against Orlando Pirates for their good form in the Motsepe Foundation Championship.
Earlier this month, VFA lost 2-1 to Bucs in a Nedbank Cup encounter at Orlando Stadium. They took their DStv Premiership opponents to extra-time and gave a good account of themselves, impressing many neutrals with their performance.
Since then, they have won back-to-back matches in the Championship, defeating JDR Stars 2-1 on Wednesday last week while at the weekend they pulled off a surprising 3-2 win over promotion-chasing Polokwane City.
Masutha believes that the match they played against Pirates has been the catalyst for their good run in the NFD, saying it sparked new belief in the players.
“We feel like we have a strong team. I think the game against Pirates did a lot of wonders for the boys to believe that they can compete against the best. It’s just a continuation of our game against Pirates, which we lost on the field but we won the phycological battle which has helped us to do well against JDR and Polokwane City,” Masutha told Sowetan yesterday.
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The 3-2 win over provincial foes City came courtesy of goals from Banele Gama, Rhulani Manzini and Tatenda Tavenga. Reflecting on the victory, Masutha said they had to dig deep to get the three points in front of the packed Thohoyandou Stadium.
“Polokwane City is a team that is fighting for promotion. We knew it was not going to be easy. We knew we had to bring our A game. We dug very deep to get those three points,” he said.
“It was an important win, it was important for us to get three points. We have been trying to survive relegation, we need as many points as we can get to move away from the bottom-two teams. We are not relying on other teams to do us favours.
“I still think we are in a relegation battle right now, we are not safe yet. We’ll focus on survival and when we are mathematically safe, then we’ll look at next season,” Masutha said.
NFD results: Cape Town Spurs 1 - 2 Pretoria Caillies, Venda FA 3 - 2 Polokwane City; Baroka 0 - 1 JDR Stars; Uthongathi 3 - 0 TTM; Black Leopards 1 - 1 Casric Stars; All Stars 3 - 0 Hungry Lions; NB La Masia 0 - 1 Magesi; Platinum City Rovers 0 - 1 Pretoria University.
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