Despite his numerous match saving stops for the Amakhosi in their opening Vodacom Challenge encounter on Saturday afternoon against English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur receiving wide spread acclaim in the English press, Chiefs goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune is remaining grounded after the win and believes that the team can now build on the positive outcomes of the victory.

Khune and his Chiefs colleagues were back in Johannesburg Saturday evening after returning from Polokwane and were on the training ground at the clubs base in Naturena early on Sunday morning where the Chiefs shot stopper said of Saturday’s win.

“It was good for us to win the game, it may have been a friendly match but two win the game was important and good for our preparation. Like Spurs we have a view on next season and it was necessary that we play with a high level of commitment in our first real test of the pre-season.”

Khune was influential in the Amakhosi’s victory over Spurs and made two crucial second half saves of these he said, “I was just doing what I had to do, keeping the balls from going in.

It was touching to read some of the English sites reaction to the game and those saves, the first one I knew that with Crouch on they will go wide and send crosses in towards him. At half time I did some drills around preparing to deal with his aerial threat, it paid off.”

Overall Khune was pleased with the way Chiefs played and feels that with the team donning a new playing strip for the coming season it spells a new start for them, “there is a feel good factor in the team and believe it or not one of the reasons for that is the new kit which Nike have designed for us.

It spells a change for us it is a different design, which also marks a fresh start and a new dawn for us as a team.”

Khune has had the opportunity to look back on Chiefs first competitive outing of the season and feels that they have learnt a few lessons from the clash with Spurs, “one of the things we picked up against Spurs was that we needed to be more patient on the ball.

In the first half particularly we hurried on the ball and did not take our time, as the game progressed we changed took our time and were more patient in our play. As the pre-season progresses we will improve by the time the season proper gets underway.”

Khune who was named man of the match against Spurs hopes that the Amakhosi build on their good start, “so the beginning was good it is up to us to build on that the fans were wonderful on Saturday and we can always count on them to get behind us. Hopefully the rest of the season goes as well, with the backing of our fans I believe it can.”