Stellenbosch FC coach Gavin Hunt has turned his attention to the domestic campaign following the Club’s exit from the CAF Confederation Cup.

Stellenbosch FC were eliminated from the CAF Confederation Cup after being held to a goalless draw in their Group C encounter against Singida Black Stars on Sunday evening.

Heading into the match, both sides were mathematically unable to progress to the knockout stage, leaving little to play for, but Hunt was still disappointed not to have picked up the three points.

“I thought we were better than a draw,” he said after the match. “We had a lot of opportunities and didn’t take them, and then opened up a bit in the second half, but I thought we could have won the game, even with 10 men.”

Faced with a run of five matches in 12 days, the Maroons fielded a rotated starting XI against Singida, which the coach revealed was part of a larger plan to simultaneously protect his players and get to know his squad better.

“…If you get an injury now, in the space of a week or two, you’re going to miss four or five games, and I think the games coming up are more important than this game. I still thought we were strong enough to win, but a couple didn’t play.

“I didn’t want to play Devin [Titus] and [Tshegofatso] Mabasa, but I put them on at the end, and you could see a little bit of a difference, but I didn’t want to play a lot of them.”

Match Report | Stellies bow out of CAF Confederation Cup

He added, “Basically, what I’ve done in CAF is played everybody and had a look at everybody, and what I’ve got now is a picture of what we need and how we need to set the team up.

“I can’t necessarily do it the way I want to, so I’ve got to do it based on what is needed. I can’t say I want to play 4-4-2 or whatever, because we’ve got certain areas to work on.

“That aside, we need to just get through this period until May…We’ve [started with] four or five different teams, we haven’t picked the same team, purely to try and prepare ourselves for the next two or three months.”

Stellies’ upcoming fixtures include three league matches, starting with Magesi FC on Wednesday, and a Nedbank Cup Round of 16 encounter against Golden Arrows, but Hunt is not prioritizing one competition over the other.

“The next game [is the focus]. It’s a terrible answer, isn’t it? But it’s the next game. In our situation, the next game is the most important game.

“We aren’t in a position to prioritize. The team could do it last year because they did so well and were high up in the league with Steve [Barker]. They could have a real go in the Confed Cup, which they did because they were well safe, but we’re not safe.

“Chippa United have won three in a row now and have gone from bottom of the log to above us. The problem is, people look at it as us having games in hand, but games in hand mean nothing. Points in hand are better for me, so Wednesday is a huge game for us.”