Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro believes attacker Thembinkosi Lorch is in a “good space” after his impressive performance against Cape Town Spurs.

The Buccaneer booked their place in the Carling Knockout Cup quarter-final after claiming a 2-0 victory over the Urban Warriors on Friday evening.

Pirates opened the scoring through a penalty by Thapelo Xoki on the hour mark before Kermit Erasmus put the game beyond Spurs in the 64th minute to seal Pirates the win at the Orlando Stadium.

Riveiro went on to explain his decision to make an early substitution while also commenting on Lorch’s fitness level.

“I think he’s in a good moment and his contribution is always very welcome to the team,” Lorch told SuperSport TV after the game.

“So I’m hoping to see a good match in general, everybody is motivated, understanding that this is like final and we want to perform in our best today.”

“We have an accident in the first half, we have to use one spot with Sipho so we were a bit short in the end.

“So I spoke with Lorch in the last minutes, he said he was fine. Obviously it’s normal after a long period to have some cramps in the game.

“Lorch is a player sometimes we don’t we are not conscience about how much he runs in the game, how many times he runs into the space and in the end of the game he played the bill a bit but you can see that he’s in a good space, he’s fit and he could manage to finish the game anyway.”

Photo by Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix