Davids praises Maritzburg’s performance despite Pirates loss

Maritzburg United coach Fadlu Davids has blamed inexperience for his side’s loss against Orlando Pirates, but says he won’t fault his team because of the effort they put in.

ALSO READ: Mailula stars for Sundowns as they ease past Cotonsport

Maritzburg were beaten 2-1 by the Buccaneers in a DStv Premiership clash at the Orlando Stadium on Friday, with goals from Monnapule Saleng and Terrence Dzvukamanja for Bucs, while Tumelo Njoti got the consolation goal for the Team of Choice.

Davids reckons there seems to be a lack of concentration from his charges with the way they conceded their first goal against Pirates, which came just before half time. And

He says it also happened in their clash against AmaZulu FC, where they were in the lead for most of the match, only to let Usuthu equalise in stoppage time.

“You can’t fault the players really after being able to do what they did in Orlando Stadium in the first half. We have a problem at the moment, you can talk about AmaZulu in the last second of the half, a critical phase and switching off with the set-piece,” said the United coach.

“Inexperience is costing us goals, which is costing us points. But you can’t fault the players, it was a game where they had to be brave (against Pirates) and brave they were.”

READ MORE: Pirates continue fine form with win over Maritzburg

The Maritzburg mentor was especially happy because at Orlando stadium, his side managed to go toe-to-toe with the Sowetoclub. Davids believes that they will be able to grind out positive results in their last league games if they continue with the same performance they displayed against Bucs, with the team embroiled in a relegation battle.

“They really stood out, they kept the ball, moved to the spaces they wanted to play in and kept the ball well. And that first half performance level we have to continue with because if we do we will get much more points in the games we are going to play,” he added.

United are in 15th spot on the league table with 21 points after 20 games.