You get upsets like this all over the world: Hunt after SuperSport's Dondol shock

09 February 2023 - 12:47
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An animated SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt during their Nedbank Cup last 32 defeat to amateur side Dondol Stars at Lucas Moripe Stadium in Pretoria on January 8 2023.
An animated SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt during their Nedbank Cup last 32 defeat to amateur side Dondol Stars at Lucas Moripe Stadium in Pretoria on January 8 2023.
Image: Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix

A visibly dejected SuperSport United coach Gavin Hunt took the embarrassment of being dumped out of the Nedbank Cup at the last 32 stage by amateur side Dondol Stars on the chin on Wednesday.

Unfancied third-tier combination Dondol arrived at Lucas Moripe Stadium to beat United 2-1 and qualify for the last 16 with second-half goals by Relenogile Molefe and captain Kholofelo Monama.

SuperSport took the lead early when Siyabonga Nhlapo headed home a well-taken corner-kick from Jamie Webber. Hunt said they should have scored more.

“When you play these types of games, you have to take your chances and score,” the coach said as he surveyed the wreckage.

“We didn’t [take our chances] and obviously they got two and the game ended up like it did, but you have to give them credit. There is nothing more you can say.

“We had enough chances, you have to take them and we didn’t take them and that’s it but fair play to them.

“We had a lot of entries around the box and you have to take your chances. Our keeper never had to make one save for the whole night and their keeper made quite a few, and their winning goal was a big deflection and fair play to them.

“Football is football, you can go all over the world and you’ll get upsets like this — this happens.”

Dondol Stars co-coach Vincent Rammoni said Hunt's famously well organised United made them work hard for their famous win.

“It was difficult to play against a Premiership side as an ABC Motsepe League team. We struggled in a lot of aspects, especially defensively. We had to dig deep to match their physical presence in the first half.

“At halftime we spoke to the players, we tweaked certain things with regards to how we played in the first half and we made two immediate substitutions at halftime so that we could bring the ball down and move the defensive line as high as possible.

“This was to force them to play more in their half and that helped us to press in pairs and to link up quickly with our centre-forwards. We started inverting our wingers to be more inside than sitting wide on the lines.

“We went for a V-shape in the second half, and it became much easier to give room to our [overlapping] fullbacks, who had too much space on the side and that’s how we got the first goal.

“Obviously the first goal brought a whole new confidence to the boys, they started to believe and they could see that it is possible and we could reach the target.”

“The second one came at the right time and we knew from there that we should go for it.”

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