Zakhele Lepasa scored a brace for Supersport United when they beat Golden Arrows 2-1 on Sunday 05 March at Lucas Masterpieces Moripe stadium, Pretoria.
This is the same player who struggled for game time at Bucs, despite a promising start to the season under Jose Riveiro.
Before joining United, Lepasa had only scored one goal in 10 matches for Pirates in the league.
After signing Kermit Erasmus from Mamelodi Sundowns, Pirates also brought in Ndumiso Mabena, and Cameroonian International Souaibou Marou, with Evidence Makgopa and Bienvenu Eva Nga also at the club.
Only Terence Dzvukamanja, who was expected to be the one to be shipped out during the January transfer window, is finding the back of the net amongst the Pirates strikers, which raises questions about whether Bucs made a mistake in letting Lepasa go.
This is a player who had caught the eye of Bafana coach, Hugo Broos with his performances in the league.
Now he seems to have found a new lease on life under Gavin Hunt at Supersport.
What Hunt said to Lepasa when he Joined Amantsantsantsa.
Hunt’s words to Lepasa when he arrived at Supersport, seems to have worked like magic on the striker’s confidence.
“I said to him when he came that he doesn’t have the best scoring record in his career, but there are a lot of things that we need to work on,” Hunt told the media after the Arrows match.
“And if he is going to play for us, we will be a different type of team. He has to do better, he knows that.
“He was better in the first half, [than in the] second half even though he scored two beautiful goals, we need more from him and I said he will get more opportunities to score if he works hard.”
While Hunt feels the forward still has a lot of work to do if he is to improve, Lepasa seems to be equal to the task.
“To work hard, we [SuperSport players] work extremely hard,” said Lepasa as quoted by FarPost.
“We were running the hill for like an hour, then we went to play a friendly against Swallows FC for 90 minutes.
“Normally when these things happen, I expect a day off or two from where I come from, but here you must still train. No one is sulking but he [Gavin Hunt] pushes you.
“When you play you see how easy it becomes in the field. When you look at the squad maybe it’s not as big as where I come from, but when they play big teams they still do well because of that [working hard].”
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All the hard work is paying off for Lepasa, but the big question is, should he return to Pirates come the end of the season?
Maybe what Hunt told Farpost should be enough to answer the above question once and for all.
“He’s a player when you look at him you say ‘wow’, but we need the ‘wow’ to come out. He is only settling in, he needs a little bit of time. He’s different from what we have got, that’s the reason why he came,” said Hunt.
Lepasa is getting game time at Supersport, he is working hard and enjoying himself.
Scoring a brace against Arrows is just the tip of the iceberg, there is more that Lepasa can achieve under Hunt.