Maduka blames mistakes for loss against Pirates

Royal AM coach John Maduka pointed to bad mistakes as the key factor in their 4-2 defeat to Orlando Pirates at Orlando Stadium on Tuesday.

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Maduka wasn’t happy with how his team conceded, especially in terms of the three goals Pirates scored in the first half.

That forced the former Bloemfontein Celtic captain to make four changes to try and help his side fight their way back into the game.

One of the substitutes, Hopewell Cele, pulled one goal back for the away side just before half-time, making it 3-1.

“We made mistakes that weren’t supposed to be there,” said Maduka.

“When you play a team like Orlando Pirates, they wait for you to make those mistakes and they punish you. The first three goals that we conceded, we were supposed to do better,” said the Royal AM coach.

“We started to look better after some changes. We started competing, we started winning the balls, and we started playing. We were also rotating the ball better.”

The Thwihli Thwahla mentor says they believed they could make a comeback in the game, especially after getting the second goal.

However, time was not on their side .

“We came back stronger in the second half …. even defensively, we were very organised. We made so many errors in the first that you won’t survive,” Maduka continued.

“After the second goal time was not on our side, but we were still pushing forward and we knew that when we did that we would be open on our side. And they managed to get the fourth goal. But we made things difficult for ourselves.”

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In their opening two games, Royal AM have no registered one draw (against AmaZulu FC) and one loss.