Dolly ruled out of Afcon as Bafana begin preps

Almost all of the Bafana Bafana players called up to prepare for the 2019 Afcon in Egypt have reported for camp and got down to business at Steyn City School on Monday, 3 June 2019.

Coach Stuart Baxter with his assistants Molefi Ntseki and Andre Arendse took the boys through a rigorous one and half hours training session in sweltering heat and on Tuesday, will up the ante as they will have two training sessions – one in the morning and the other in the afternoon.

Player liaison, Mark Fish was also in attendance giving his advice which coach Baxter said will come in handy for the entire squad.

Bafana Bafana are in Group D, together with Ivory Coast, Morocco and Namibia. They kick off their Afcon campaign with a match against Ivory Coast on 24 June, followed by the match against Namibia on 28 June and they wrap up their group matches with a titanic match against Morocco on 1 July. All their matches are in Cairo.

In between training sessions, players will undergo mandatory Pre Competition Medical Assessment (PCMA) for the Afcon tournament. The PCMA includes checking the bloods, ECG, Echocardiogram and Muskoloskeletal Examination.

Team Doctor, Dr Thulani Ngwenya said the processes of PCMA will be done in stages until all players have been medically examined.

Meanwhile, Dr Ngwenya officially confirmed that Keagan Dolly will not take part in the upcoming Afcon tournament after the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans revealed that the dynamic midfielder has aggravated his niggling groin injury.

“He is completely out of the Afcon. There is no chance that his groin injury will recover in time,” said Dr Ngwenya.