Banyana coach Ellis happy with performance despite defeat

Ellis said she took a lot of positives from this encounter.

“I felt that after being dormant for two months that we needed to be on top of our game and I think for the first 20 minutes we showed our intent, we were compact and organised but it takes that one moment to make a mistake and get punished,” Ellis told the Safa website.

“We spoke of minimising our mistakes and there was one moment where we were not switched on and we got punished. But overall, we played our type of football and at times I thought we troubled the Japanese defence. I also thought when Thembi (Kgatlana) broke, we didn’t have enough support to her.

“The support came later but we could not get enough support to her and again later in the first half, the critical moment when we failed to pick up the opponent, made another mistake and got punished,” she added.

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“I think the Japanese fans will go away and say it was a good game, this is a good side and as you saw, we play the similar way they play. They are slightly ahead of us but I am happy with the performance but obviously not the result.

“I would also like to congratulate Leandra Smeda for her 100^th cap, she is the 9^th Banyana Banyana player to achieve this feat.”

Meanwhile, Smeda said the milestone was a dream come true for her in Banyana Banyana colours.

“It was a good game and we played well. We knew it was going to be tough. We created some chances but we made some mistakes and we got punished. Their coach had warned us that we make a mistake against Japan, we will pay the price and that is what happened.

But for me personally, it was great to get my 100^th cap against Japan and I enjoyed the game,” she said.

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