{"id":120128,"date":"2018-08-14T18:34:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-14T16:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/fitness-behind-ujs-promising-start\/"},"modified":"2018-08-14T18:34:55","modified_gmt":"2018-08-14T16:34:55","slug":"fitness-behind-ujs-promising-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/fitness-behind-ujs-promising-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Fitness behind UJ\u2019s promising start"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fitness behind UJ\u2019s promising start<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Fitness behind UJ\u2019s promising start:<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

University of Johannesburg’s Mokete Mogaila goes on the attack against Wits in their Varsity Football match at the UJ Soweto campus in Johannesburg on Thursday. Photo: Dominic Barnardt\/VarsitySports<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

A strong commitment to an extensive fitness programme has seen the University of Johannesburg team deliver a promising start to the Varsity Football season.<\/p>\n

After three rounds UJ are sporting an unbeaten record with two wins and a draw, placing them in second place on the log, two points behind early pace-setters North-West University.<\/p>\n

The team registered a significant 2-1 win over Johannesburg rivals Wits on Thursday and UJ soccer manager Joel Kgokong said much of their success was down to their conditioning.<\/p>\n

“We have got off to a good start and that’s what we were aiming for,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Much of this can be put down to the programme we have in place under one of sports scientists – Sereeta Miles – who has managed the fitness of the players very well.”<\/p>\n

He said an indication of this came in the University Sport South Africa tournament, from which they emerged with all their players’ fitness intact<\/p>\n

“Maintaining fitness is one of the challenges we have had,” added Kgokong.<\/p>\n

“You don’t normally compete in a tournament [such as USSA] where you play seven matches in five days and avoid injuries.<\/p>\n

“But that’s what we have managed to achieve and Sereeta has been able to get the players to peak fitness for the next tournament – Varsity Football.<\/p>\n

“So that is definitely one of the reasons why we have been able to perform better.”<\/p>\n

In addition to that, Kgokong said there was a strong sense of urgency in the camp that this was their chance to take the title.<\/p>\n

“We are tired of making the semifinals and sometimes losing in the final [UJ were runners-up in 2016], so there is a real focus on trying to win the tournament this year.<\/p>\n

“We have several players with a fair amount of experience because they have been part of Varsity Football since 2014.<\/p>\n

“They form the core of the team and understand the dynamics of Varsity Football and what we need to do to make sure we are in with a chance of winning.”<\/p>\n

Even though they were among the early frontrunners, Kgokong said they would not be looking further ahead than the next match.<\/p>\n

UJ are up against University of KwaZulu-Natal – who won the USSA title earlier this year – in Durban on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“For instance, we have always battled against teams like UKZN, who have twice knocked us out of the USSA quarterfinals.<\/p>\n

“Now they are battling a bit in Varsity Football [they’ve lost three out of three], but we know you have to take each match as it comes.<\/p>\n

“We are not in a rush and do not think we are going to beat everyone else. For each match we have a plan in place and make sure that we come out with at least a point, or preferably three.<\/p>\n

“If we can do that, once we reach match five we will be on track to secure a spot in the semifinals.”<\/p>\n

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Source:<\/strong> MyJHB<\/a><\/small>
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Fitness behind UJ\u2019s promising start: Fitness behind UJ\u2019s promising start: University of Johannesburg’s Mokete Mogaila goes on the attack against Wits in their Varsity Football match at the UJ Soweto campus in Johannesburg on Thursday. Photo: Dominic Barnardt\/VarsitySports A strong commitment to an extensive fitness programme has seen the University of Johannesburg team deliver a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3332],"tags":[4876,11580,18972,2366,6387],"class_list":{"0":"post-120128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-johannesburg-south-africa","7":"tag-behind","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-promising","10":"tag-start","11":"tag-ujs","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}