Sekhukhune United goalkeeper Renaldo Leaner in action against Stellenbosch FC at Athlone Stadium on Friday night.
Image: BackpagePix
Sekhukhune United have endured a horrid last fortnight.
Not only has the club relieved former coach Eric Tinkler of his duties after a run of poor results, but now the Babina Noko will have to find a way of lifting the confidence of out-of-form goalkeeper Renaldo Leaner ahead of next Saturday’s clash against Marumo Gallants.
The Bafana Bafana No 2 seems still to be suffering from the blunder he made on his international debut against Panama at the DHL Stadium in Cape Town last month.
Coming on as a second-half replacement for Bafana captain Ronwen Williams, Leaner could only parry the ball into the path of the oncoming Panama striker for the visitors’ equaliser. Panama went on to win the friendly 2-1.
Leaner was again guilty of costly errors in Sekhukhune United’s 3-1 defeat to Stellenbosch at Athlone Stadium.
On both occasions, the former Cape Town Spurs and Maritzburg United shot-stopper tried to play the ball out from the back, but instead his wayward passes to goals for Stellenbosch’s Genino Palace and Chumani Butsaka.
These mistakes led to Sekhukhune United coach Paulus Masehe, who was in charge of his first official game, hauling off Learner after 80 minutes and replacing him with Toaster Nsabata.
A visibly disappointed Leaner headed straight down the Athlone Stadium tunnel instead of the substitutes bench to evade the scrutiny of the television cameras. Masehe claimed that the substitution was to protect Leaner from any further embarrassment.
“To be honest, it was more protecting him from maybe conceding even more because it could have been worse had we left him and then he conceded five,” said Masehe.
“And knowing exactly that, you know, he could have done better. Sometimes you just have to take those kinds of decisions to protect the players.”
Mosehe also stressed that he’s confident that Sekhukhune will return to winnings sooner rather than later as the transition from Tinkler’s exit has not been disruptive due to him having been part of the coaching staff.
“To be honest, it was not that much disruptive, because remember, it was just a continuation of what we have already been making,” he said. “Just that, to a certain extent, I needed to add a little bit of my own profile into the team and also my own personality into the team.
“It's something that needs time. It cannot be just done in four days. You always need maybe two weeks or so to be able to instil it in the team.
“The response, from the attitude perspective, I'm very happy. The boys, they really did work extremely hard and tried really hard to come back into the game.”