Highlands Park head coach Owen da Gama believes his game plan against Kaizer Chiefs ‘worked to the tee’ on Tuesday evening.

The Lions of the North managed to secure a point against Amakhosi after playing out to a 0-0 draw at the Makhulong Stadium in the Absa Premiership.

Highlands now occupy eighth place in the league standings with eight points while Amakhosi have moved into second with 14 points after eight matches.

The 57-year-old coach says he was pleased that his side always had cover for the Zimbabwean star Khama Billiat while praising them for maintaining their structure throughout the game.

‘We are very humbled. Our game plan worked to the tee. We forced them to play long kicks. We understood that [Itumeleng] Khune is good on the counters [with his distribution],’ Da Gama told SuperSport TV after the game

‘We always had cover for probably the best player in South Africa [Billiat]. And then Lindokuhle Mbatha gets the Man of the Match, I’m proud. I’m proud of these boys, they deserve everything.

‘We’re here to be as competitive as possible. Fair play to Chiefs, they came to play. It was good football, we had opportunities to score, they had opportunities to score but overall I think the game plan was fantastic.

He added: ‘The structure of the team is unbelievable considering that we still have some young boys who must learn the trade.

‘The technical team must take a lot of credit for the hard work they do behind the scenes in analysing teams like Kaizer Chiefs. In set-pieces they are very dangerous, on the counter-attack with players like Billiat, [Hendrick] Ekstein, [Lebogang] Manyama they are just fantastic.’