Richards Bay coach Pitso Dladla has put the blame for their recent slump on the fact that they are struggling while playing away.
In their last five matches across all competitions, the Natal Rich Boyz failed to register a win, losing three games and drawing two. In those games, four were on the road, while the other was at home against AmaZulu.
With three fixtures at home in the next five matches, Dladla said it is time they start winning at King Zwelithini Stadium, starting with Stellenbosch on Saturday (5.30pm).
“We have our own target as a team, we sit down and group the games into a block of five games and what I can say is not that we played 20 games, it means we have completed four blocks,” Dladla explains.
“This is the only block where we have not achieved our target as a team internally and this is a block whereby we also knew that it was going to be the most difficult.
“If I can tell you, we only played one game at home, the other four in this block were away games. We played Marumo Gallants, SuperSport away, AmaZulu home and then the other two were Swallows and Sekhukhune United.
“In five games, there was only one at home, so we knew this was going to be the toughest block and we’ve not achieved our target.”
Despite failing to win in those matches in the past, Dladla feels they were unlucky not to come away with all three points as they dominated. “We drew against SuperSport United, the game we should have won after we dominated, and we drew with AmaZulu... we dominated that match as well,” he said
“Swallows, we lost that game, but we also dominated. I think it is a matter of us working more on the last third to try to score more goals because we are becoming a team that is not scoring goals.
“It is more about sitting down and trying to create more scoring opportunities and when we create them, we convert them and see what we can get out of the game. I think we need to work on that one. Now, it is a matter of defending well and converting chances.”
Fixtures
Friday: SuperSport v Maritzburg, Lucas Moripe, 7.30pm
Saturday: Chiefs v Pirates, FNB, 3.30pm; Richards Bay v Stellenbosch, King Zwelithini, 5.30pm; Sekhukhune v CPT, Peter Mokaba, 5.30pm; AmaZulu v Royal AM, Moses Mabhida, 8pm
Sunday: Chippa v Swallows, Nelson Mandela Bay, 3.30pm.
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