Cape Town City coach Benni McCarthy believes his side were nowhere near their best against Polokwane City on Saturday.

The Citizens were eliminated from the MTN8 quarter-finals following their 2-0 defeat by Rise and Shine at Newlands Stadium.

McCarthy lamented his sides defeat but is focused on their upcoming Absa Premiership encounter with Mamelodi Sundowns on Tuesday.

‘Our application was not right; we allowed these people to come and dictate, they controlled the game and put us on the back foot,’ McCarthy told SuperSport TV after the game.

‘We were not at the game, it was a bad day and I don’t want to make excuses. I want to congratulate Polokwane, the players and the coaching staff … their team came to compete and I think we deserved to lose, fortunately not by a bit more.

‘But we were nowhere near our best and when you’re nowhere near your best in this league, every team will punish you and today it was our turn. Hopefully, it’s a reality check for our players.

‘That’s top-flight football, we deal with the physicality every single week, so I can’t understand why today it was such a different day.’

McCarthy insists that his side will go back to the drawing board after failing to defender their top-eight title.

‘The environment, it is also bit tough when you have one week you play there and the next week you don’t know where you will be,’ the coach lamented.

‘That’s not an excuse for us to come here and give a performance as we did. We should have done a professional job, that’s we get paid for, but you lose some and win some at the end of the day.

‘We weren’t able to defend the MTN8 but at least it gives us a chance to go back to the drawing board; one more day and you fly out and then you face the league champions [Sundowns].

‘It’s not getting any easier and the result here is a good reflection of what we want to do next Tuesday.’