Steve Barker believes if his Stellenbosch side were more skelem they would have had a game-changing penalty in their 2-0 PSL loss to Wits on Saturday.
With Stellies trailing 1-0 with 15 minutes to play, the controversial moment arrived as Leletu Skelem got goalside of the Wits defence from a Waseem Isaacs flick-on.
The 21-year-old forward refused to go down under Buhle Mkhwanazi’s challenge and couldn’t get away his left-footed shot with enough power to
cancel out Gift Motupa’s first-half opener.
And Wits would take advantage again on the counter with Dean Hotto’s shot taking a deflection off Morgan Gould into the Stellies goal.
SKELEM: Stellenbosch FC head coach Steve Barker. Picture: Ryan Wilkisky/BackpagePix.
A frustrated Barker said afterwards: “I think we gave as good as we got overall. The scoreline was a bit flattering for Wits, they only had one shot in the first half.
“We went through and the boy [Skelem] gets put off balance – it’s a penalty.
“I asked the fourth official and he said but he didn’t dive. So there is no advantage, he stays on his feet.
“So in future do you go down and it’s 1-1? I’m not too sure.
“That’s a game changer and then after that we’re 2-0 down."
Barker’s side started well and played most of the game on the front foot with a side featuring weekend-signing Granwald Scott lining up against his former side Wits for Stellies.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/StellenboschFC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@StellenboschFCcoach Steve talks disappointing start to 2020 - lessons learned & encouragement.
▪︎Rayners out for 6-8 weeks
▪︎Karuru will add value
▪︎Scott showed quality pic.twitter.com/oT9M2uDevS
— Stevlin Malgas (@StevlinProNFD)
Scott should have done better with the best chance of the opening 30 minutes when striker Ryan Moon helped set him up with a strike from the edge of the box after a long Marc van Heerden throw-in.
Wits made them pay immediately as Motupa took Sameehg Doutie’s pass into the channel to fire home from a tight angle to give the Students the lead.
Other PSL results:
- H'lands Park 2 Leopards 1
- AmaZulu FC 0 Sundowns 3
- SuperSport 2 Kaizer Chiefs 1
- Bloem Celtic 1 Pirates 1