Chippa United co-coach Thabo September admits his side could not “maintain that level of intensity” throughout the game against Orlando Pirates.

The Chilli Boys were forced to endure a 2-0 defeat after a brace from Tshegofatso Mabasa saw Pirates walk away with all three points at the Orlando Stadium.

The defeat leaves Chippa sitting in 11th place with 33 points from 27 games, while Pirates remain in third place in the DStv Premiership standings with 49 points from 27 matches.

September admits that his side struggled to deal with the threat Thabiso Monyane possessed on the wing, stating they were punished for not dealing with his threat.

“I think we made a mistake following a player, it’s something we still need to work on at training, we follow the player inside and they play it through,” September told SuperSport after the game.

“We managed them, we knew we don’t have the legs after such a game on the weekend to maintain that level of intensity, so we needed to just control the game without the ball, give them the spaces that we want to give them.

“But Monyane on the right side he found the right moments to go up and we couldn’t deal with those balls. There were signs or warnings in the beginning of the game and ja we were punished.

“We tried (to solve it), it’s football, when you don’t fix things and you get the warnings, at the end of the day you get punished. Azola has not played in a long time, we had (Siphelele) Luthuli in front of him but in the second half.

“You might tell me why did you resolve it in the second-half because in the second-half he was not going up because they had two but when he was up we managed him well, so it’s not a matter of we couldn’t resolve it but we needed half-time, ja we went to half-time 2-0 down,” he concluded.

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