Stellenbosch FC coach Steve Barker was able to savour a first piece of silverware as a coach on Saturday when he led his side to the Carling Knockout title with a penalty shoot-out victory over TS Galaxy following a 1-1 draw in Durban.

He shares his view on the game and the first trophy for both him as a coach and the club as a whole.

On the final

“I think obviously, it turned out to be a hard fought gritty cup final between two teams that were desperate to go all the way. So I don’t think the football itself was great and the tactics eventually sort of fell out of the window, it was just about digging deep and the desire and the hunger to persevere and to be resilient and just to continue doing what you have to do on the field of play. My players were again unbelievable in the way they just continued to put in such committed performances. I could see and I could feel that they were a little bit heavy today, it’s been quite a lot of away games over the last months. A lot of travelling time and three times to Durban in the space of just over four or five weeks, and the humid conditions. The pitch was a bit thick, so it wasn’t really conducive for a spectacle in terms of ball playing. It was just about wanting to win the trophy badly. Going 0-1 down at halftime, I just had to remind the players that we had created a bigger chances in the first half. It would have been a fantastic goal had Iqraam Rayners been able to take his chance … a great save from their keeper. It was just a matter of telling the players that we’ve got 45 minutes, it’s a long time, we don’t have to score two goals, it’s not a league match where you going for three points. As long as we can just get one goal get ourselves back for extra time. I was backing ourselves to be able to then ask them real questions in extra time and our subs added a bit of energy of impetus at the right time in terms of Antonio van Wyk and Andre de Jong and (Nhlanhla) Mgaga. We just kept on pressurising them and were rewarded with a goal. There was a couple of tired legs out there and a lot of transitional football, which looked quite dangerous. So yeah, a hard fought victory, really proud of the team, the effort, the club, for what they’ve achieved, the opportunities that the club give. In terms of making history, these players deserve every single credit that they get and well done to them to the club to the staff for a wonderful effort to come here and lift the trophy.”

On the penalty shootout

“After losing a penalty shootout to Chiefs in the MTN quarterfinals last season and then Sekhukhune in the Nedbank Cup semi-final, we were determined not to ever lose a penalty shootout again. So we do a lot of homework in terms of our penalties, but we got thrown a bit of a curveball following Fawaaz Basadien’s red card. He was one of our designated key penalty takers. We do our homework on opposition so (goalkeeper) Sage Stephens looks at his bottle to see where we can expect opposition player to go. We’ve tried to be scientific about it making our best penalty take go first and second best fourth. But when Mgaga went and missed, I thought ‘here we go again’, all the science behind it is not working. But yeah, we hung in there. We’ve taken over 260 to 270 penalties over the last while. We’ve been practising a lot. So I just told the players that we’ve prepared well, just, you know, go be confident, score your goals, and the rest will take care of itself. So yeah, it’s a big relief to finally won a penalty shootout.”

On the psychological approach< “One of our big messages that we had going into this game … we've got a performance psychologist who works with a team Andre Grobler …. and one of the things that he presented to us was that, going into the final, everybody must have somebody that you want to dedicate it to, so that when the going gets, think of somebody that you're dedicating this match to, which will just keep giving you the energy to continue, keep giving you the spirit to just continue till the end. We lost a soldier in Oshwin Andries and it was nice for his mom to be here today. And it was always in the back of our minds that we would like to do something special and honour obviously my uncle (Clive Barker) also. I'm sure he's looking down upon us and very pleased and happy for me personally.” On winning a trophy

“Obviously, having lost the Nedbank Cup in the final and then you know, getting close to making finals recently, and getting to the final and actually winning, it is deeply satisfying. I might not be showing it now. I think I’m emotionally drained. It was a long, 120 minutes, but is extremely satisfying. And I think it’ll all hit home tomorrow in the next couple of days, once we’re back. Fortunately, our next game against Sekhukhune United has been postponed because they’re not going to be back in time for the travels. I think it would have been tough to get ourselves up for another big match away from home. So yeah, extremely, extremely satisfying. It’s difficult to describe the feeling that I have. It’s just been, a journey of hard work and dedication and commitment to my sort of career and what I do so to get a trophy in the bag as a coach. You know, I’ve won two league titles as well, promoting two teams from NFD. So now to here, it’s a good space to be in. But as coaches, you know, three, four months down the line, we could be again under pressure. So when we do when things like today, we’ve got to enjoy it and I’m definitely going to enjoy it. And we’ll be back to defend the cup, that I can promise you.”