Mamelodi Sundowns joint head coach Manqoba Mnqgithi says his side are looking to beat their own record of 71 points this season to retain their title.

The current league champions are targeting a third straight title triumph after clinching a domestic treble under former coach Pitso Mosimane last season.

Now, under the co-guidance of Mnqgithi and Rulani Mokwena, the Brazilians are looking to continue their dominance of South African football, and according to Mnqgithi the team want to eclipse their own record of 71 points this season.

‘We have looked at our periodisation and tried to tweak some of the things and our training programme, for which I must commend our conditioning department – they have done a little bit better in that space,’ he told the media.

‘But I must say it also helped us to bomb out of the MTN8 because that was a big surprise for the team. We wanted to go through, but that setback maybe galvanised a little bit going into our first match against a big team.’

Their Caf Champions League schedule could affect their domestic campaign, Mnqgithi said, so it is important to collect maximum points at every opportunity.

‘We kept that momentum and that is important. In January we have plus minus nine games and between now and January it’s about 14 to 15 matches in total. So, it is very important that when you have moments and when you have breathers in between, you plug your gaps and work very hard,’ the coach explained.

‘The boys have responded. The games we won are not easy, but one feels maybe we dropped points against TTM and we would have been in a better space. We are getting to where the team was when we got 71 points, and we are trying very hard to push for that bench mark to see how far we can go,’ said Mnqgithi.