As Johannesburg emptied out at lunchtime on Friday as most families began heading out of Gauteng to officially begin their summer holidays, the Kaizer Chiefs players watched on as they continued to labour hard for Sunday’s game against Maritzburg United. As the N1 highway, clearly visible from the Kaizer Chiefs training ground in Naturena, crawled along at a snails pace with holiday makers on their way out of town, Ernst Middendorp and his players paid no attention to the holiday vibe around them as they remained focused on their next two outings for 2006, and aim to go on their holidays, next week with a full compliment of points on offer to them.

Chiefs are hoping to avoid handing Maritzburg United an early Christmas Present, when they meet the team from KwaZulu Natal on Sunday at Vodacom Loftus in Tshwane. Instead Amakhosi midfielder Siyabonga Nkosi who has been growing in stature over the last couple of games, and has showed a marked improvement in his performances since recently returning from injury, is hoping to give the Chiefs fans a celebratory send off with a win on Sunday.

“At the moment our team is both mentally and physically ready for Sunday’s game

We have been practising hard over the past week, we had a tough assignment against Pirates last Saturday and we came out of it stronger and demonstrated our togetherness by fighting to get a point out of the game” added Nkosi.

With Maritzburg United trying to avoid their fifth straight league defeat Nkosi, believes there can be no slip up from him and his teammates.

As he added “ from our end we need to avoid a holiday or festive hiccup, we know this is the time for giving and sharing.On Sunday the only thing we aim to give our supporters is a lot to shout about”.

With many people out of town on holiday, Siyabonga is confident that The Amakhosi will have enough voices in the stands to make Chiefs penultimate game of 2006 a memorable one.

“There might be a lot of people who have gone away on holiday right now but there are still many of our supporters who are waiting for us to finish our games for 2006, so I do think there will be a significantly large crowd on Sunday to spur us on to victory, achieving our fifth league win of the season will have also meant that we have been able to clear another psychological hurdle which is in front of us” added Nkosi.

With growing optimism within the Chiefs ranks and with The Amakhosi in no mood to be charitable on Sunday, Chiefs second last game of the season is sure to be an action packed goal-laden encounter.

As Chiefs go in search of their first league win over Maritzburg United this Sunday, they do it with the knowledge that victory on Sunday will propel them to a position in the top five on the league table.