Mokwena’s experiment a bit reckless for Sundowns?

Perhaps it is fair to say Rulani Mokwena thought it was wise to take a knife into a gun fight and in the end, he and his Mamelodi Sundowns side paid the price after an unrecognizable Downs side were held to a one-all draw by Stellenbosch this past weekend.

At some point — given that Bafana Ba Style have opened up a 20 point gap — the general expectation was that they would make a couple of changes in the final lap of the DStv Premiership, but Mokwena and his side admit that they learnt the hard way after the Orlando Pirates and reject rolled the dice expecting a double six, but drew one.

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The rotation saw the defending champions’ 15-game winning streak halted, as they were just two games away from equaling the record set by rivals Kaizer Chiefs.

“Sometimes you learn the lessons in difficult moments where there are challenges that we recognize when we are winning. With a lot of humility and appreciation to our opposition, we have to accept that we are not going to win every single match and this result was a good demonstration of that,” says Mokwena.

“It comes as a lesson for the players, the coaches, the club and the supporters that you can’t win every match. But that does not mean that we don’t try. We invest a lot of effort in preparation to win a match and if we don’t win, we have to say congratulations to the opposition. We take the point and we march on with a lot of humility,” he added.

There were a couple of players who made their senior debut for the club, such as Ntandoyenkosi Nkosi and Siyanda Nyanga, while players like Rivaldo Coetzee and Terrence Mashego were reintegrated into the team after lengthy injury layoffs.

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“We had to give a lot of our players chances to play because when players get opportunities it makes them happy. We’ve done it and we have no reason to think ‘why did we rotate’ because we got a draw,” said Mokwena.

He added: “It is part of football. We win so much and with victories come very little life lessons. Sometimes you have to receive the uppercut because you learn. Fortunately the lesson was a point for us and not a loss. We have to try and improve to get better.”