Jeremy Brockie left for Papua New Guinea on Sunday in a mood higher than the altitude his plane flew at, having won his first trophy in his first final and is now set to play for New Zealand today in the Oceania Nations Cup against Vanuatu.
But there were three disappointments at the back of his mind; SuperSport United failing to challenge for the Absa Premiership with the good players they had and him falling short of winning the Lesley Manyathela Golden Boot that was handed to Collins Mbesuma last night at the PSL awards at Emperors Palace. The third, which is a source of embarrassment for the Kiwi forward, is to improve his goals tally in the national team with just one goal in 47 games. He’ll start changing that today, with his other two disappointments something that he is confident Matsa-tsantsa a Pitori and he will improve on next season.
“If I am honest, before the season started, when I looked at the squad we had - I thought we were good enough to win the league,” Brockie said.
“It didn’t happen because at the start of the season we were inconsistent, we were up and down. Stuart (Baxter) came to the team as a winner. He instilled that in us. Winning the Nedbank Cup is just the beginning.”
The club had the same feeling when Gordon Igesund took over from Cavin Johnson, and helped Matsatsantsa lift the Telkom Knockout in 2014.
That instant success was seen as a catalyst that will see them challenge for the league this season, especially led by a mentor who has won it four times with four different clubs. But that didn’t happen, even though he had a squad brimming with talent.
Baxter is in the same boat, having turned United from chumps to champions in just five months.
The club is set to further bolster the squad with Cole Alexander, Reneilwe Letsholonyane and Reyaad Pieterse.
The problem for Igesund is that there wasn’t much looking at the bigger picture, it was only about the now which has characterised his coaching career.
Igesund rarely stayed or did well in all the clubs he has coached after achieving some degree of success. When Baxter arrived, the plan was always on building for a brighter future with little targets for the end of this season that didn’t include winning the premier knockout competition which will see them play in the CAF Confederation Cup next year.
“The most difficult thing in sport is to sustain success, make sure that you aren’t a one-hit wonder” Baxter said. “You build on it by challenging. Dean (Furman) when I came, he was beating himself up because of the team.
“I challenged him to do something differently and he reached that challenge.
“He will be challenged again. He has to stretch himself. The whole squad has to stretch itself.
“I will add players who will bring more competition and help everyone to stretch themselves. We will have to find something tactically that we will do to improve.
“You can’t stand still. Everybody else is moving. If you’re think that you’re good enough, everyone will pass you.
“I am sure that when we come back for pre-season, the players will feel challenged again and that will keep us going forward. The challenge of playing in the continent, defending this trophy and playing well in the league is a good thing to be facing when planning for the future.” - The Star