UWC met the objectives for the season - Mbuli

After the league’s end-of-the-season awards this past weekend, UWC head coach Thinasonke Mbuli told SABC Sport that finishing runners-up to Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies meant a great deal to her and her team in terms of their objectives for the season.

"We said beginning of the season we want to do better than the previous one. So, doing better was going to be finishing number two or finishing number one. Obviously, the goal was to try and challenge Sundowns and I think we tried first round of the season and I think we had few issues second round of the season," Mbuli said.

"That's why we started to drop points. The target was to do better, so we knew that if we landed number one it could have been a bonus. But number two is one of the reasons why the players celebrated like that because it was a position better than 2021,"

Mbuli was one of the finalists for the HWBSL coach of the season award but missed out to Sundowns’ Jerry Tshabalala.

Having finished third on the log last season, UWC showed improvement by winning five more games and finishing ahead of Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) as compared to the previous campaign.

The attack is one area that needs attention, according to the coach.

"I think the area where we need to improve because when you look at the numbers compared to last season. We finished off the season with 53 points, this season with 58. We conceded 15 goals last season and this season we conceded 13, so you can see defensive wise that we are okay,” Mbuli added.

“I always say I think we've got some of the good defensive players in the team in fact in the country. The area that we need to improve on is scoring. Even if you look at the games where we played a draw, if you go back and watch the game, you see that it's a game that we could have easily won,” she explained.

“We are a team that normally creates a lot of chances but I think our attackers this season let themselves down. The way we play in our team, anyone can be a top goal scorer but the problem was scoring. I think that's the area we really need to improve on," she concluded.