Wits host Ajax Cape Town in Braamfontein in an Absa Premiership clash that will mark a mini-reunion of sorts.
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Wits host Ajax Cape Town in Braamfontein tonight in an Absa Premiership clash that will mark a mini-reunion of sorts.
Roger de Sa returns to the venue he has called home for many years on two separate occasions eager to lead the Urban Warriors from the Mother City to victory over a Bidvest Wits side teeming with players who owe their professional success to some time spent at Ajax.
Gavin Hunt, the Wits coach who hails from Cape Town, can call on no less than three former Ajax stars to get his team a rare second successive league victory in a season that has been so up and down it must have club boss Brian Joffee suffering some dizzy spells.
Wits goalkeeper Moeneeb Josephs, who is sure to start in goal, played at Ajax and has worked closely with De Sa as well as briefly at Orlando Pirates.
Defender Thulani Tyson Hlatshwayo spent the majority of his career at Ajax and only joined the Clever Boys this season.
Sahmeeg Doutie cut his professional teeth at the Urban Warriors and is now one of Hunt’s key players having played at Pirates as well as SuperSport United.
The trio will want to send their former team back to the coast empty-handed while their ex-teammates would love nothing more than to have the last laugh against them in their own backyard.
Tied on 23 points with a similar goal-difference and positioned third and fourth on the table respectively, Wits and Ajax – like the rest of the Premiership – continue to nurse hopes that leaders Kaizer Chiefs come a cropper sometime soon.
But they also know only too well that it won’t help their cause in any way should they continue to stutter like they have been when Amakhosi dropped points in draws.
And that will add some spark to tonight’s clash – the desire to grab maximum points being that much important in the battle to stop Amakhosi from making the championship race a one-horse parade.
Hunt, whose team won 1-0 away to Bloemfontein Celtic at the weekend, will have impressed on his players the importance of putting together a good run instead of the stop-starts they’ve been having.
Only once have the Clever Boys been victorious in the league in successive matches, Wits beating Free State Stars and MP Black Aces on November 22 and 26. After those victories, Wits were brought down to earth with a thud when Kaizer Chiefs hammered them 3-0.
That they picked themselves up to win at Celtic should give Hunt confidence as they welcome Ajax.
De Sa’s team have not been that inconsistent, having actually been top of the table early on in the season when they actually won the first three matches.
One of those was a 3-1 beating of the self same Wits in Cape Town in which nathan Paulse completed a brace and Keegan Dolly added the other strike.
A repeat of that win and De Sa could well be on his way to destroying the generally held notion that he is only good at getting his teams to a flying start but always fails to pep them up in the second round.
Like Wits, Ajax’s last win was against Celtic but they have not won any of their two matches this month – the Capetonians having drawn with both Moroka Swallows (1-1) and SuperSport United (0-0).
Any such results tonight – for both sides – and the championship dream that is already beginning to look just that could take on the status of a hallucination.
For if they are to remain in the challenge, then nothing short of victory will do. And for that to happen the camaraderie of the reunion will have to be reserved for pre- and post-match. - The Star
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