GAVIN Hunt was nonchalant about it all. Deep in the bowels of this Atteridgeville venue — named after one of South Africa’s greatest exponents of the game, the late Lucas “Masterpieces” Moripe — Hunt accepted the fate that had befallen him on the occasion of his milestone 1 000th match as an elite coach.
SuperSport United’s Betway Premiership clash against Arrows was abandoned prior to the start of the second half after load-shedding plunged the venue into darkness. Match referee Siyabulela Qunta blasted his whistle to signal the abandonment at a time when he should have been blowing for the restart.
Incredibly, just three minutes later, the lights came back on while both teams were still in the dressing rooms. However, SuperSport United officials’ pleas to match commissioner Lebogang Daniels fell on deaf ears.
“The referee has abandoned the match, so there’s no way we can restart it now. There’s a difference between abandonment and suspension. I will submit the report to the PSL, and the PSL will decide (when the match will be played again). The lights were not on when we were supposed to start after half-time,” Daniels said.
Hunt took it all on the chin. The coach, who had been feted like a hero — receiving a guard of honour from the two clubs and a standing ovation from the crowd when he walked onto the pitch — said he had seen worse before.
“We’ll have to play it some other time; they have to reschedule it somewhere. We had a tough game on Tuesday, so maybe … you obviously want to try and finish these types of games, get it over and done with. But all in all, it is what it is—mother nature, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Of course, it’s not rain or hail. It’s football, isn’t it?
I’ve seen much worse things than this, but it should not be about me; it should be about the team and the game itself. But ja, it is what it is—many matches were canceled in the past.”
He had been pleased with his team’s performance before the initial stoppage in the first half when the lights went off.
“We were okay until we had that break, and then we were flat all of a sudden, and they scored, so it was a bit frustrating from that perspective. I think we wasted ten or fifteen minutes and could have played in better light.
“I think the game should have continued when there was light, but then we stopped, and we were a bit flat. But no excuses — we should have done enough to get ourselves back in the game and finish it.”
His counterpart at Arrows, Musa Bilankulu, was even more frustrated, as this was their second successive match to be abandoned. Abafana Bes’thende had their midweek match against Orlando Pirates called off due to the pitch in Hammarsdale being unplayable.
“I feel very bad for the boys that this is the second game, and we are falling behind with matches. Now we have gone two weeks without competitive games, and we go to Galaxy.
Hopefully, that game will be played, although we will find a Galaxy side that has been playing. Obviously, we are disappointed because after they scored, we gained rhythm and started implementing our passing game and positional rotations, creating two opportunities and getting the equaliser from the movements we worked on in training.”
Christian Saile scored the opening goal before Willemson Ndwandwe equalised. But now, they will have to do it all over again as Gavin Hunt’s pursuit of match number 1 000 continues unabated.
