Gilport Lions coach Paradzayi Mandivenga believes his team has turned the corner and will start churning out good results. After a rocky start to the season, that saw the team winning one game and drawing one out of their first nine, the Lions have now won two consecutive matches as they try to claw out of the relegation quagmire. Aside from not getting enough pre season training, coach Mandivenga’s charges woes were compounded by unkind fixtures that saw them going head to head with almost all of the title contenders in their first few games. Among the teams that Gilport had to play in their first eight games were Gaborone United, Extension Gunners, Mochudi Centre Chiefs, Police XI, BDF XI and Township Rollers. Speaking in an interview, the Gilport Lions’ gaffer said following the positive results garnered from the past two games, the team is now on the right track.
“The results are showing. I think we are going to win a couple of games because when we started the season, we started with the so called big guns. Even during those games, we were no pushovers and you could see that if we met other teams aside from the big teams, we could win those games,” Mandivenga explained. He said having started their preseason two weeks into the new season, playing the top teams in the first games made things very difficult for them, hence a poor start to the season. “We started our preseason very, very late, only two weeks into the season. Unfortunately, we started with big teams, first game it was GU, second game it was Gunners and to us, it was still preseason. We knew the first five games were going to be tough because we were still in preseason but we also knew that we will start seeing a difference on the sixth game; and we are indeed seeing the difference,” the Gilport Lions gaffer continued. With the team’s losing streak now broken and only five games left before the season goes to break, Mandivenga said the immediate focus for the team is to have reached the 20 points milestone when the season goes to recess. “Our real target for the season is to reach 41 points at the end of the season. If you reach 41 points it means you are in the top eight. If we can at least get 20 points at the end of the first round, then we are hopeful of getting at least 21 more points in the second round as I believe we will play much better,” the Gilport Lions gaffer said. Meanwhile, Mandivenga said he is grateful to the Gilport Lions hierarchy for backing him during the time when the team was going through a dry spell. “I never sought any assurances from the team’s hierarchy as I knew they understood what was happening. They believed that we would eventually come right and I believe we are now on the right track to achieve our target for the season,” Mandivenga concluded. The coach’s words were echoed by Gilport Lions owner Kelesitse Gilika who said he believes his team has turned the corner. He said the current turn of fortunes at Gilport was partly a result of their belief in the team coach and his technical team as well as a long time plan the team is working with. “We know we struggled when the league started and we know why. You can never cheat football. We failed him (coach) because we started our preseason season late. Even when the league started, we were still recruiting, so we could not expect to win from the onset and we were not on par with teams that had proper preseason training,” Gilika explained. The Gilport owner also said the team’s target is to garner 41 points at the end of the season; something which he believes is achievable.
