23 Oct 2024

Jwaneng Galaxy on October 22 collected maximum points away to rivals Township Rollers, but the win was mostly due to the stellar performance of shot-stopper Goitseone Phoko, who literally carried his team on his shoulders.

Galaxy scored early in the first half through Thero Setsile, after which Rollers took total control of the game launching attack after attack, each of which was confidently answered by Phoko.

Was it not for his form on the day, Galaxy would have likely lost the game by quite a margin, and after the game, Phoko indicated in an interview that after his team scored, he was determined to do all he could to ensure that they won.

He said with his team having had a problem of convincingly finding the back of the net, he knew the importance of preserving the precious early lead.

“After we scored that one goal, I was determined to fight for my team, that if we cannot score another goal at least we should not concede. That is what I was determined to do and thanks to my time at the national team. I have managed to pick my standard of play,” he said.

Phoko said his other positive was always being ready to learn, whether at club or national team level. Despite keeping a clean sheet in his first three games of the season, Phoko said he could not talk or even think about the Goalkeeper of the Season award, as it was still too early.

“My only focus right now is doing my best every game and keep as many clean sheets as possible,” he said.

With his contract with Galaxy elapsing at the end of this season, Phoko was cagey on whether he will renew.

“I will answer that when the right time comes, but at this moment I can only talk about this game. Rollers is a big team and for me to help my team win against them, I had to do my very best. We had few shortages against Gaborone United last time so we had to go back to the drawing board and correct a few things,” he said.

Galaxy coach, Morena Ramoreboli’s position was that maximum points mattered more than anything else.

“If a boxer goes into a ring, punches once, you can celebrate the number of punches that the opponent did but they count for nothing if that one punch helps the other boxer wins,” he said, metaphorically referring to his team having delivered a knock-out punch despite Rollers dominating the match.

He said it was also important to understand that they were playing away to a team that was desperate to win.

“All we had to do was to find a way to escape their pressure, and we resorted to counters and use of set pieces,” he said.

He added that his team had also been hard at practice on set pieces; something, which he said, was a morale booster to players as they had managed to find results from something they had put energy on.

For his part, Rollers coach, Mogomotsi Mpote, indicated that he was left frustrated by Phoko’s performance.

“My boys did all they could, and the fact that a goalkeeper was awarded a Man of the Match indicates that we were really all over Galaxy. They literary played just 10 minutes of the total 90 and for rest of the game we controlled everything, only to be denied by the keeper and partly our failure to be mercurial with our chances,” he said.

Mpote indicated that conceding early in the game was suicidal by his team, and said their main undoing might had been too much determination to equalise and even win, which he said led to poor decision making in the final third due to desperation. ENDS