New Stellenbosch coach Gavin Hunt says he used the African Confederation Cup group matches to get a better idea of his squad and now that their continental campaign is over, he can concentrate on trying to move the club up the Betway Premiership standings and away from the danger zone.
Stellenbosch have a busy programme of five matches in the next 12 days, starting with a home game against bottom-placed Magesi on Wednesday as they return to the Danie Craven Stadium after a six-month hiatus.
Hunt switched his starting line-up again for their last Confederation Cup group game against Singida Black Stars in Cape Town on Sunday, which ended in a goalless draw.
Both Stellenbosch and their Tanzanian opponents were already eliminated from the running for a quarterfinal place before the match.
“Any player who gets an injury now, in the space of a week or two, you’re going to miss four or five games, and I think the games coming up were more important than this game. I still thought we were strong enough to win, but a couple didn’t play,” said Hunt, who took over from Steve Barker in December.
“I didn’t want to play Devin [Titus] and [Tshegofatso] Mabasa, but I put them on at the end, and you could see a little bit of a difference, but I didn’t want to play a lot of them.”
“Basically, what I’ve done in Caf is played everybody and had a look at everybody, and what I’ve got now is a picture of what we need and how we need to set the team up.
“I can’t necessarily do it the way I want to, so I’ve got to do it based on what is needed. I can’t say I want to play 4-4-2 or whatever, because we’ve got certain areas to work on.
“That aside, we need to just get through this period until May. We’ve started with four or five different teams, we haven’t picked the same team, purely to try and prepare ourselves for the next two or three months,” the veteran coach added.
Stellenbosch play at the weekend in the second round of the Nedbank Cup away against Lamontville Golden Arrows before three league games against Kaizer Chiefs, AmaZulu and Siwelele.
“In our situation, the next game is the most important game. We aren’t in a position to prioritise.
“The team could do it last year because they did so well and were high up in the league with Steve. They could have a real go in the Confed Cup, which they did because they were well safe, but we’re not safe.
“Chippa United have won three in a row now and have gone from bottom of the log to above us. The problem is, people look at it as us having games in hand, but games in hand mean nothing. Points in hand are better for me, so Wednesday is a huge game for us,” Hunt added.