Pirates have already long forgotten about when they threw themselves out of contention for the league title despite there still being a third of the season to play and they have also not found much joy in the MTN8 and Telkom Knockout with the only measure of respect being that they were losing finalists in the CAF Confederation Cup late last year.
The stark reality staring at The Bucs right now is that for them to rescue themselves from watching their campaign sink into muddy waters they need to win the last piece of silverware available on the offering – the Nedbank Cup – which would then guarantee them a return to continental football yet again next year.
The trouble or rather the challenge is that their biggest rivals Kaizer Chiefs are already standing as a hurdle as early as the last 32 of this competition with the two giants squaring off at FNB Stadium tomorrow (15h00).
“Very important for us to try and finish the season off on a high and this is an opportunity for us to do that so everybody is highly motivated to achieve it by going all the way to the final and bringing the Nedbank Cup home,” says Tinkler.
“The first obstacle will probably be our toughest challenge because we are playing against Kaizer Chiefs. The advantage that both teams have is the fact that we have played each other four times already this season so in terms of players knowing what their responsibilities on the particular day they know that well. Now it is just up to who pitches up on the day and who is more motivated than the other,” he says.
Having done well by reaching the Confederation Cup final Tinkler is also interested in the benefits of what winning the country’s flagship knockout competition brings.
“The Nedbank Cup is extremely important for us for two reasons. One, we want to finish off the season well and secondly it gives us the opportunity to play in the CAF Confederation Cup and that is obviously where I would want to be again and so do the players. We would like to go on that adventure again and hopefully this time we will succeed,” says Tinkler.
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