Five things Gavin Hunt needs to do immediately at Chiefs

If he gets it right, he will be hailed as a hero forever but if things don’t go his way – as has happened with Steve Komphela, Giovanni Solinas and Ernst Middendorp before him – he will face the wrath of the Amakhosi faithful.

READ: ‘I’m here to win trophies’, says new Chiefs coach Hunt

The well-travelled mentor has his work cut out for him at Naturena where the expectations are sometimes ridiculously high. But Hunt has all the credentials. He has won trophies before and knows what it takes to win them.

Here we look at five things we think he should do immediately to ensure success at Amakhosi:

This will obviously be really tough especially if Chiefs do not get the transfer ban reversed. But Hunt needs to get fresh faces in his team. There are players at Chiefs who have hit the roof and there is nothing new they can offer the team going forward. He will need to be brave and put them on transfer to make way for new players who will be as hungry as he is for success.

While Amakhosi fought to the last day for the league title, their performances were not exciting. That is perhaps one of the reasons they had so much pressure that they blew up the title chance in the end. Their own supporters were not sold on the style the team used. And while keeping the winning mentality from the previous coach is important, a fresh style of play that will be accommodative of expressive players like Khama Billiat and Sphelele Ntshangase will help him win over the fans and allow him time to rebuild the team.

Hunt is naturally not a man of many words but he will have to change that. He will need to talk the talk to inspire confidence in both his players and the supporters. His humbleness will not help him at a big club like Chiefs. He now plays from a position of dominance and will have to talk the part. He has already started well by promising trophies and he should not be shy to talk big. But he will have to back it up with results too. It cuts both ways, I guess.

This will have to be done delicately as too much change all at once can be disastrous. There are players in the Chiefs team who have been sidelined for so long that their confidence is really low. He will need to bring them back into the fold and make them feel worthy of their places in the team while stressing that they also need to reciprocate with good performances. Hunt already has the respect of almost everyone in local football so this should not be too difficult for him.

Winning this trophy would be a marvelous start for Hunt. It will surely endear him to everyone associated with the club and also give him the confidence to start things his own way without any fears. It will also buy him time to start building his own team. So, he needs to go all out and try to win this short competition where you play just four games and get crowned champions. He has won it before and can easily do it again.