Banyana coach Ellis to make changes in second friendly against Jamaica

Banyana Banyana coach Desiree Ellis is expected to make wholesale changes during the second international friendly against Jamaica on Monday. 

South Africa suffered a 3-0 loss to the Reggae Girls in the first match on Saturday morning at Montego Bay, where the hosts secured victory goals through Siobhan Wilson and a brace from Khadija Shaw. 

Ellis said even though the mission is to try and level the series, she will make changes to ensure that all travelling players get an opportunity to play as she continues broaden the pool in preparation for Women's Africa Cup of Nations (Wafcon) in Morocco next year. 

“We are here to test players against this physical side and we also want to make sure that everybody gets an opportunity to play, so that when we go back home we have bigger core group of players. If you look at our last game against England, I made seven changes,” she said. 

Reflecting on the defeat, Ellis said they lost on the scoreboard but passed the physical test.

“I thought with the group that we brought, it was going to be a challenge — but we needed to test players because we are preparing for Wafcon. We want to test as many players as we can. And we also picked up a couple of injuries before we left and we were not able to replace. 

“In the first half we did not have an output up front, but I thought we coped well until the set-piece. In the second half it was just tired legs and we knew it was going to be a challenge with jet leg and long travel because it takes a while to settle in. 

“But when you are playing against a quality player like Shaw, you have to be on top of your game — and I thought she was smart in terms of how she moved one centreback to the other one.” 

Ellis said they created chances but did not convert them. 

“Other than that, I thought we created enough chances — and maybe if we had taken one or two, we could have been closer to the game. At this level, when you make a mistake in your own half, you get punished — and that's what happened. 

“We wanted to keep the ball more because we didn’t have an outlet. We were playing a player up front out of position because just before we left we had a couple of our frontline players withdraw due to injuries. 

“We had to try a few things, but our strength is to keep the ball — but at times we didn't protect the ball enough. If we took better decisions, we probably could have had a few shots at goal. 

“We knew it was going to a physical game and that was going to be a test — and where that is concerned, we passed that test.” 

Ellis said there are important lessons learnt from the match:  “To retain possession more, our movement also needs to be better, especially in the final third, and we need to be concentrated at the back.

“At times we did not move enough when we had the ball and our strength is not to play long but to keep the ball, run behind and play the ball through.”