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Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
AGE is a very high price to pay for maturity, they say!
This appears to be the case with 57-year-old Manica Diamonds coach, Jairos Tapera, whose level of maturity has seen him insisting that winning the championship is not yet part of the Gem Boys’ major concern, albeit remaining within shouting distance in the 2023 Castle Lager Premiership title race.
If it were some loud-mouthed coaches, sitting on third position and just eight points behind unbeaten Highlanders, a single point adrift second placed, Ngezi Platinum, talk of chasing the championship would be naturally and justifiably dominating their discourse.
But Tapera thinks focusing on the next match, each one of them as they come, is what is most important.
“We are not at all looking at that (Castle Lager Premiership title). We have big teams above us and below us. We are trying to punch above the expected. We will continue to try and win as many games as possible,” said the self-effacing former Young Warriors and FC Platinum coach.
After a slow start to the 2023 domestic Premiership season, Tapera, who took charge of a fairly new outfit in terms of players composition, then turned the tables as Manica Diamonds started collecting points along the way.
Playing their home matches away from home, the club produced impressive results, even against the domestic league’s feared teams, no wonder they currently occupy the third position.
Free scoring striker, Fortune Bhinzi’s injury came as a major setback for Tapera, given the impotence of initially highly rated strikers such as Donald Ngoma.
Hopes were high at the beginning of the 2023 season that Ngoma would be Manica Diamond’s chief striker, but a barren spell that has seen him failing to score even a single gaol in the 17 rounds of league matches played so far, meant the Gem Boys were in need of another gem to place their hopes for goals on.
In Bhinzi they found the gem!
But after an injury to Bhinzi, Tapera had to spread his nets wide in search of a striker who could be a fitting replacement in the possible future absence of young Bhinzi, thus he settled for former Marirtzburg and Dynamos forward, Tawanda Macheka.
“We thought we are stronger being together as of now. We just need more time to know each other and even bring more positive results. However, after the injury of our top striker, Fortune Bhinzi, we saw that we wanted another striker, hence we added one more, Tawanda Macheka,” said Tapera.
In their next league assignment, Manica Diamonds face tricky customers, CAPS United, and Tapera reckons it will not be a stroll in the park.
While CAPS United camp has been turbulent in recent months due to financial woes that eventually saw their chief executive officer, Charlie Jones resigning, the Green Machine are a big team by local standards and are capable of producing good results even when the chips are down.
“It is a huge game for us. CAPS United have been a big threat to us. We all know CAPS United are a big team with a great technical team. We respect them for that. We will prepare well for them. We are going to compete for the full set of points,” said Tapera.
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