Steve Barker wants Stellies to get back on the League horse after MTN8 final disappointment

Stellenbosch FC coach Steve Barker is hoping his team takes home some valuable lessons from their MTN8 Cup Final defeat to Orlando Pirates. 

Stellies succumbed for the second successive year to the Buccaneers in the showpiece of the early season competition and now have to refocus ahead of their Betway Premiership clash away to AmaZulu at the Princess Magogo Stadium on Wednesday. 

“I do think lessons were learned,” Barker said.

“Once you get regularly into finals like we have, it's our third final in three seasons, sometimes you may not win all of them. But what you do gain from being in finals is we also gain our own experiences and hopefully these experiences can stand us in good stead going forward.”

The Winelands club were hoping to claim just their second top-flight trophy in a bid to galvanise their season. Barker’s team have endured a slow start to the 2025/26 Premiership, with just one victory from five starts, to sit in 13th place. 

They can take confidence from having beaten the Usuthu - albeit after extra-time - in the first round of the MTN8 Cup already this season, but Barker knows that his team needs to pull up their socks and start grinding out results if their ambitions are to be achieved. 

“We've got work to do in the league,” Barker said. “We want to make sure that if we want to be in the top eight again, we need to get up as quickly as possible.

“Get over the defeat and get back into the league matches and improve our position on the log. We're a team that has the ability to bounce back, so that's going to be key”

Barker stressed that he still has full faith in his current squad, despite having to build virtually from scratch again after losing a host of key players during the off-season. 

“You look at today's performance, and you think, you know what, there's potential in this team of mine and we will grow, we will develop, we'll get better and a lot of those players will also show themselves going forward,” he said.

“Our secret is recruitment. We've got a really excellent recruitment department. Because we are not a club currently that can go out and spend a great deal of money purchasing players, It's our responsibility to go and find those players that maybe are not always known about or seen.”