Phuti Mohafe defends Polokwane City use of Old Peter Mokaba Stadium

Following their goalless draw against Kaizer Chiefs this past weekend – a game that had previously been played at the bigger New Peter Mokaba Stadium, Mohafe was confronted over the decision to change to the smaller neighbouring venue.  

Mohafe insisted that there was nothing untoward in making use of their preferred home ground, which better suits his charges, as is the case when they travel away from home to face opponents at their own preferred venue. 

"This is our home ground, so where must we play? We deserve to play at this home ground because they take us to their home ground," defended Mohafe.

"Regardless of how the pitch looks, this is our wonderful pitch, we love it and everybody must come to our pitch and play us at our ground.

"I'm becoming aggressive by saying that – they must come to our field and play at our field, so we deserve to play here and not anywhere else.

"Because when we go away, we play on their field, so why not? Let us continue playing at Old Peter Mokaba, it suits us better and we do well when we are playing on this field."

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With the Betway Premiership midtable tightly contested and Rise and Shine having failed to win any of their last seven league matches, Mohafe says he is not worried about failing to collect maximum points against Chiefs. 

"It is a bitter pill to swallow, but at the same moment we say we gained a point from the best team – we gained a point from a team that is playing exceptional football at the moment," he added.

"You get a point from a team that is scoring more than 11 goals in five matches, so we got a point from a team that has scored more than two goals in every match that they play, so for us to contain and maintain them, it's a positive sign.

"That tells us that we defended well, it's just that we didn't finish and we didn't convert our chances, so even though it is minimising the chances of qualifying [for the MTN8] because the teams that are behind us are catching up.

"But also, we are saying to the teams that are in front of us, they are not moving away so it gives us a little bit of hope to say, 'Guys, this point we got today is a massive point for you, so go forward with it, carry it on the chin and keep moving.'"