Tinashe Washington Nengomasha strapped himself up in preparation for training on Friday morning with one thing on his mind as he trudged out onto the field at the Kaizer Chiefs Village in Naturena, the no nonsense tough tackling midfielder has glittering ambitions for Chiefs game against Platinum Stars on Sunday afternoon.

With Chiefs having had three weeks off from their last competitive game to the Stars encounter this weekend in Rustenburg, Muhsin Ertugral has used the time off to get his team into peak physical shape as they prepare for what could be an eighteen-game run in to the year.

Nevertheless Nengomasha believes that Chiefs have the mental toughness as well as a team with strength beyond most of the rest of the chasing pack, to ensure that they end the year in a strong position and hopefully be amongst the top three teams on the standings at years end.

Chiefs' hard-working midfielder is eager to get out onto the park against Stars and assist The Amakhosi in wrapping up their first victory over the North West Province based team in a league game since April 2005. With Stars recently parting company with their long-serving coach Owen Da Gama, Chiefs will be favoured with taking all three points home on Sunday.

Tinashe will also be well aware of the fact that as one of the senior players in the current Chiefs team, a lot will be resting on his shoulders to help plot a winning path for the younger players in the team to tread along.

Stars change favours Chiefs

Over the course of Chiefs' battles with Stars in the past three seasons, honours between the teams are dead even with either team having won two and lost two matches while a further two games have seen the teams end in stale mates.

Tinashe is aiming to turn the tide against Stars this weekend and is looking to put paid to Chiefs indifferent start to the season, which has seen The Amakhosi dominate the opposition but have recorded just one win in five games and notch up league win number three over Stars.

“For us, we are aware that Stars are not playing the way they did last season and from past experience losing a coach during a season is never easy for a team. You get a new guy in and players need to adapt to new systems.”

He also added “Really if you look at it, this game is there for us to lose, we are playing the better game and if you look at their past couple of games we know that we can win on Sunday”.

Domination to continue

Tinashe also holds the opinion that The Amakhosi as a team have gelled well and have a great understanding on the field with each other, and believes that the recent victory over Swallows in the Telkom Cup last 16 saw Chiefs make a major u-turn in their season.

“The fact that we have been playing well together over the past five games as a team shows that we have been doing something correctly and as a collective unit we have great chemistry. Our aim should be to take the game to the opposition and not sit back and wait for them to make the plays. What has helped us is that both our starting front men scored against Swallows and with the number of openings and chances being set up for them, I do feel that the goals will begin to flow more regularly for us.”