Barker happy with Stellenbosch resilience in MTN8 thriller against AmaZulu

The game, played at the DHL Stadium, was a physical battle on a difficult pitch and stretched into 120 minutes and substitute Langelihle Phili scored the decisive goal against his former team. 

Barker says it was an ideal test to start the season.

"A lot of things that you are never really 100% sure of, first game of the season, where you at and what you need to do. It was good for us to get a competitive game like we did today to just see where we are and obviously next week a big league match is coming up,” Barker said. 

“So, a couple of things to work on but you know once again we are in a semi-final and we're showing that consistency as a team to be reaching many semi-finals over the last couple of years. 

“Hopefully we can again get ourselves in the final and hopefully get one step further than last season."

While Stellenbosch sealed the win, Barker admitted that he was not entirely satisfied with the performance, particularly with the nature of the goals conceded. 

He stressed the importance of winning such tightly contested matches to remain competitive at the top level, but acknowledged there’s work to be done defensively.

"From a tactical level I thought we started the game really well with a lot of good possession and unfortunately gave a goal that we don't like to concede from a second, third phase set piece,” he explained. 

“Obviously we got ourselves back in with another goal and then got a really good free kick from Sanele [Barns] and then again a bit of an error in the back pass which we didn't deal with, which then got them back into the game. 

“So, that was a little bit frustrating in terms of the type of goals we conceded and then it was just a matter of really digging deep and the team wanting to sort of win the most. We always felt that we had a really good ability from the bench to either change the game or enhance the game with our subs. 

“So, really pleased for a player like Langelihle Phiri to be given an opportunity to come on at the time he did and to get the winning goal."