Mamelodi Sundowns co-Coach Manqoba Mngqithi has warned new signings Ronwen Williams and Sipho Mbule, who recently joined them from cross-town rivals SuperSport, that the road ahead will be rough. The duo debuted when they crashed Cape Town City 2-0 in the DStv Premiership clash on Friday.
The Bafana Bafana skipper Willians joined Masandawana last month on a permanent move for an undisclosed fee, whereas Mbule completed his hard-fought move to the Brazilians in June as the Chloorkop-based outfit aim to continue dominating the South African football top-flight.
Football fanatics had doubts over whether the two players would be fit enough to feature for Sundowns, but the duo went on to prove what they are capable of.
“In Ronwen, the decision was to try and induct him as quickly as possible. The road ahead is a little bit rough, and the competition in that space is still going to be rough, but it’s always better when he’s going to be playing at the back of performance against Cape Town City because already he has played a very intense and very high profile game. The save that he pulled will maybe also help him to calm his nerves a little bit,” Mngqithi told the media.
“It’s a decision that we took as coaches. Denis [Onyango], Kennedy [Mweene] and Reyaad [Pieterse] have been very good at training, and so has Ronwen.
“It’s also very important to induct a player that you think is going to be very important for you going forward with matches like this because if you play him against a so-called small team and he does not perform well, then everybody is on top of him and everybody is no longer too sure whether the decision was right or wrong, so it’s always better to introduce them in big matches.”
Meanwhile, Mbule, who made his first appearance for Downs coming off from the bench, showed what he is made of and helped his side secure the much-needed victory to start the season on a high note.
“He [Mbule] has improved a lot physically, he has lost a lot of weight, he’s still work in progress and giving him an opportunity today was also to shake off that anxiety and the feeling of wondering what will happen, but to play them early so that their integration process is early enough before pressure amounts,” he added.
“We think those few minutes might’ve helped us in one way or the other because we could’ve easily played [Andile Jali], [Sphelele Mkhulise] or any other player, but we felt in the last few minutes we should give it to him.
“Probably the same thing that we were thinking of on Ronwen – that they must be inducted and integrated into the team very quickly so that we can get the ball rolling with all of them.”
However, Williams and Mbule will be eager to play consistently for Bafana Ba Style as the team looks to defend its league title successfully.
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