Pirates’ Davids disappointed with Royal AM draw

Orlando Pirates co-coach Fadlu Davids was left disappointed following his side’s failure to keep their lead during their DStv Premiership clash with Royal at Chatsworth Stadium on Friday.

READ ALSO: No Champions League spot for Pirates and Royal AM as they cancel each other with thrilling draw

The Buccaneers surrendered a comfortable 2-0 lead, only to end up playing to a 2-2 draw with the KwaZulu-Natal club, with the result ending Pirates’ dreams of qualifying for the Caf Champions League next season.

Having scored the two goals early in the first half, Davids believes his troops could have extended their lead and killed the game off earlier, which could have prevented Royal from fighting their way back into the game.

“Really disappointed that we gave it away but the players gave it their all. The last little energy they had they pushed, even with ten men we pushed.

“But we have to be fair that we had to kill the game with 3-0, that’s what we said at half-time. 2-0 is not enough and we had opportunities to kill it off,” Davids told SuperSport TV after the match.

“It’s not putting pressure on the ball, our pressing structure was quite good in the first-half, 10, 15 minutes of the second-half, then we had opportunities winning the ball and having moments on counter-attacks to kill off the game and that’s what we did not do.”

Davids adds that his players started to get tired in the second which forced them to stop attacking, but that only made things worse as it opened the floodgates and Thwihli Thwahla managed to fight back.

“In the first 15 minutes of the second stanza we kept the structure, the energy started to drop and we dropped deeper and deeper and we didn’t put pressure on the ball and that’s how we conceded the first goal from Thabo Matlaba, not putting pressure on him from the midfield area.”

Following the result, the Buccaneers are in sixth place with 44 points, while Royal AM jumped to the Caf Confederation Cup spot in third place with 47 points.

But, Pirates can leapfrog Royal with the Soweto giants having one more game to play when they travel to Pretoria for a meeting with SuperSport United on Monday.