Bidvest Wits coach Gavin Hunt believes that the new rules to be implemented in next year’s Caf Champions League will help South African teams.

Hunt’s Wits team were knocked out at the qualifying stage of the Caf Champions League on Saturday after a penalty shootout loss to Clube Desportivo de Agosto.

The changes, which Hunt referred to, will see the Caf competitions run from September to May like the European format.

According to Caf, the next continental tournaments, would commence in December and end May 2019. This differs from the current calendar which starts in February and ends in December of the same year. It is however, expected to run a full cycle by 2019, as the season would then run from September to May of the following year.

Speaking at the Absa Premiership monthly awards, Hunt rued the luck his side have had while also pointing out the difficulties of playing in the competition: ‘The last three, four years now. We lost on penalties twice in the qualifying round, we lost on an away goal once and last year we lost 1-0 to Al Ahly over two legs.

‘The problem we have had when coming into these qualifying games is that we have really been short on numbers. Like on Saturday, I only had one striker due to injuries and suspensions. So, it has been a bit of a timing thing, but we have given it a full go.

‘It’s been unfortunate. We just haven’t had the pool and size of players at that given time. We haven’t had a full quota on the bench because of registration. So next season when it changes, I think it will benefit the South African teams tremendously because we will all be in sync then. Whereas nowadays we are halfway through the season and they are only starting.’