Marumo Gallants’ decision to poach Phuti Mohafe from Polokwane City is not a hire—it is a surrender to the league’s most tired habit: recycling the same faces instead of demanding fresh ideas. Mohafe kept Polokwane competitive on a shoestring, yes, but his brand of football was stubbornly conservative: direct, low-risk, and utterly predictable. In the second half of last season, Polokwane’s shot-creating actions per 90 dropped into the bottom three of the Betway Premiership, and they survived by squeezing narrow wins from set pieces and individual moments from Oswin Appollis. That is not a tactical blueprint worth stealing. It is a survival manual. Gallants, currently flirting with the relegation zone, needed a coach who could impose an identity—not another manager who will park the bus and ask his goalkeeper to launch goal kicks onto a lone striker. By turning to Mohafe, the club has signalled that it values familiarity over evolution, and that it has learned nothing from the catastrophic tenures of Dan Malesela and Raymond Mohlala, whose short stays delivered only chaos.
This move also entrenches a pernicious league