Davids delight at Lepasa return

Fadlu Davids expects Orlando Pirates to come back fit and firing for the second half of the campaign with the mid-season break giving them the chance to clear their injury room.

The club received a significant boost on Thursday when striker Zakhele Lepasa got his first minutes in over a year in the 2-1 victory over AmaZulu that sees the Soweto side go into the break in second place, 14 points behind runaway leaders Mamelodi Sundowns.

"In the second-round we'll get all our players back, it's a huge boost for us. It was fantastic for the squad in terms of Zakhele Lepasa after one year out," Davids said.

"It was a fantastic moment in the camp, thanks to the physio, the pressure he went through and to come here and to have that taste of football when his injury was really in the balance.

"So really credit to the medical team for getting everybody ready and credit to the entire technical team for finally pushing through. We get to the end of the camp, the end of the year and we can only move forward.

"We're back on January 6, we'll do some Covid-19 testing, some other testing and we go into a camp. We'll have a four-week preparation [for the second half of the season].

"We know our schedule in terms of the second-half of the season, it's Africa [CAF Confederation Cup], travelling every two days. This schedule of [four games in] eight days was really tough, but we were able to handle it, we constantly played with the same team more or less, apart from forced changes.”