Comets remain positive amid tough debut and uncertain FNB Varsity Cup future

It hasn't been smooth sailing for current FNB Varsity Shield champions, FNB Emeris, who are having a tough FNB Varsity Cup debut season this year and their coach Jeremy McLaren has admitted that things have not gone as planned this year for the men from Durban.

“I think the nature of the competition is that life will be difficult if you’re in year one. Obviously we had some planning going before the start of the competition to try and win more than just one game. Or to just be in the competition for survival. We tried to prep as good as we could have”

The FNB Comets have collected just a single [bonus] point on the league table and have lost all of their games so far. McLaren still believes that the defeats have not come as an inability from his men, rather, as a result of common trends for debuting teams in the competition as well as the high difference in level between the FNB Varsity Cup and Shield.

“I think if you look at three years back when FNB UWC was in it as well, they were also pretty under the pump”

“What makes it difficult is that you only have one year to try, especially as a new university, to try and establish what this competition takes out of you. We are not a bad team. It is a few youngsters who are learning the trade. Winning the FNB Varsity Shield is also a different level so it’s for us to understand what it means going against these big traditional university.”

FNB Emeris have it all to play for in the match on Monday against FNB CUT in what is almost a battle for survival clash of which McLaren believes will be an even difficult encounter.

“Monday is a massive game against CUT I think for them they also realize it’s a massive game so it’s probably all to play for”

“I think CUT Ixias has really still shown as part of their scores as well that they are a pretty tough team” said the Comets mentor.

“I think, not going well is probably the nature of it, we have learnt some lessons and we somehow have to find some solutions” added the Comets coach.\

“In the last few weeks we now just have to go and do as well as we can and see if we can find ourselves in a position to survive the competition and learn from it. I think we just have to be a little bit more consistent and we have also seen some individual errors have cost us. The higher the level goes the stronger your individual skill has to be. Massive challenge for us this coming Monday. And we hope it can go our way” he concluded.

By: Mpendulo Letsoalo