25 Sep 2017

Black Forest interim coach, Reetsang Letlole says his team will be competitive again this season despite losing a number of good players during the off-season.

The Mmankgodi team took the league by storm last season after gaining promotion from the first division and wrapped the league on position nine which was impressive for rookies.

But the team saw star attackers Thatayaone Kgamanyane and Lynoth Chikuhwa respectively depart for Gaborone United and Security Systems while goalkeeper Michael James went to BDF XI.

Forest relied heavily on the players last season, but Letlole said they have been able to find replacements and that the team would be solid again.

They started the campaign on a positive note by edging Miscellaneous 1-0 at Otse Police College Stadium on September 24.

Gofaone Mabaya scored the only goal of the match in the second half.

The nippy winger fired past Miscellaneous goalkeeper, Bophelo Kealeboga from a free kick to settle the encounter after 70 minutes.

Though the two teams were balanced, the Mmankgodi team was the livelier going forward and created the best opportunities, but debutant striker Molaodi Tlhalefang frustrated supporters by spurning most of them.

He shot tamely at Kealeboga after 28 minutes after escaping the attention of Miscellaneous centre half Simon Mashadza, before squandering another opportunity after 40 minutes with another feeble shot after Tiro Pheresi laid the ball to him inside the penalty area.

Two minutes into the second half, Pheresi took on the Tse Nala defence and squared the ball for the young striker but he miskicked in front of the gaping posts.

Miscellaneous contested well in midfield but struggled to set up opportunities for forwards Master Masitara and Bonolo Fraiser who were well policed by Kennedy Taukobong and Tonderai Nyakuba.  

Despite the victory, Letlole said there was still room for improvement.

“Our performance was not the way we wanted. I think the players were affected by the long per-season. We ended up breaking our practices to avoid causing a lot of fatigue on the players. But the players tried today. We started slowly in the first but the players tried hard to implement the game plan. We created few chances in the first half though we missed them. He (Tlhalefang) is still young and it was his first game in the premier league, he will improve,” Letlole said.

“We have a good team and once we have sorted out the paper work for our two foreign players I think we are going to compete well,” he added.

The result meant that former Extension Gunners Daniel Nare’s reign at Miscellaneous got off to a losing start. ENDS