Maritzburg United head coach Eric Tinkler is proud of his team's 2-2 draw with Mamelodi Sundowns, but wants to see referee's do better to control games.
Thabiso Kutumela and Rushine De Reuck were on the scoresheet for the hosts on Friday as they negated goals from Hlompho Kekana and Ricardo Nascimento.
Tinkler said after the game that he was pleased with his players' performance after such a long time away from the game.
"I'm proud. I think it's difficult to be honest you know because as I said before maybe I was a bit too harsh on the players for the last game. Four months is a very long time to be out of professional football or professional sport for these players," Tinkler said on SuperSport TV after the match.
"And the fact that you come back and you throw them straight into competitive games without playing any friendlies. It's always going to be tough to gauge where you are.
"I think looking at the first half, Sundowns you can see the fluidity is there because they've played more games than us, they've already had four or five games now and this was only our second. So we started very poorly.
"Although our shape defensively was slightly better but we looked like we were playing with fear, we didn't look confident on the ball every time they pressed us, we gave it away too cheaply and we ended up having to soak up a lot of pressure which ended up in them scoring," he continued.
"We tried to fix that, ja we got the equaliser but that was only the real opportunity we created in the first-half, I thought they were much better than us in the first-half and I said to be boys at half-time that.
"'You know what, first and foremost we can't be playing with fear. Tactically we need to hold the line a little bit higher, don't drop off too early because when you drop off too early you're allowing a lot of spaces and that's what they're going to look at playing is in those spaces in front of the midfield and the defensive line'.
"And when we've done that we looked more of a threat. I think coming back we deserved to make the equaliser, make it 2-2. Every point is gold to be honest, right now every point is gold, possibly I could have been a little bit brave and say 'come let's get the three points because they are down to ten' but you're playing against a quality team," he said.
"Like I said they had the fluidity and the quality that they have they can potentially catch you on the break so we had to play a little bit cautious towards the end. I'm happy with a point, points are gold, you can see what is happening in this bubble, it's not easy.
Turning his attention to the refereeing, Tinkler added that he was disappointed to see the match official seemingly influenced by coaches when he decided to award Sundowns a penalty early in the second half.
He added: "One or two things happened in the game that were a bit disappointing you know. Referees must control the matches, don't allow coaches on the side to control matches for them and unfortunately, one or two decisions, the penalty, was it a penalty? Was it not a penalty? I'm not sure. Referees must blow the game not coaches."
- TEAMtalk media