Stellies should be ‘Skelem’

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

- Polokwane 2 Chippa 0

- Maritzburg 2 Arrows 1

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