Milford coach hails Stallions’ clinical edge in another KZN derby win

Milford FC coach Xanti Pupuma believes his side’s ability to make the most of their opportunities proved decisive in Saturday’s 1-0 Betway Premiership victory over Golden Arrows in Umlazi.

The Stallions climbed to fourth on the table after securing their second win in three KwaZulu-Natal derbies since earning promotion to the topflight.

Siposethu Ndlabi’s solitary strike separated the sides in a closely contested encounter, with Pupuma acknowledging that the result could easily have gone either way.

“Yeah, it was a tight game as expected, we know each other, we more or less play the same way, so we cancelled each other out.

So, it was a game of a moment and we probably had two or three moments to win the game and we used one of those moments,” says Pupuma.

“Unfortunately for them, I think they only had one dangerous play towards the end.

It’s what I expected, I thought it was going to be a one goal game which it turned out to be and it’s always nice to play Arrows.

I think we test each other and we respect each other, I saw it as a good advert for KZN football and hopefully we can both continue playing well because they lost but they didn’t play badly at all.” With 15 points from nine matches and two defeats, Pupuma added that what they have managed so far sets them up pretty for the second half of the campaign.

“No, everyone is to win, we’ve had a good start, the aim and the plan was to try and have a good start.

Fortunately for us, things have gone a little bit how we had hoped, hopefully we continue ticking the boxes that we wanted to tick and see where we are in December,” the coach explains.

“Hopefully we’ll be in a place where we don’t really desperately need points in the second round because it gets tougher.”