Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Rhulani Mokwena praised his players for “fighting hard and showing a lot of resilience” to return to winning ways in the DStv Premiership.
The Brazilians extended their unbeaten run to 12 games following their 2-0 victory over Sekhukhune United at ABSA Tuks Stadium on Saturday.
Goals from Neo Maema and Themba Zwane saw Sundowns open a nine-point gap at the summit of the DStv Premiership standings with 30 points, while Sekhukhune remain in third place on the log with 20 points from 12 matches.
“Firstly, let’s compliment Sekhukhune they’ve got a clear model of play and of course a clear model of play that is to the strength of their players,” Mokwena told SuperSport TV.
“But also credit to our players for fighting hard and showing a lot of resilience to bounce back from the last two draws.
“Not easy because the personality of the opposition changes. In the first-half they had a very low block and we knew we had to break it because if you don’t break it, they stay with the low block and continue with neglecting possession and coming a little bit to attack the space.
“But second-half they made the double change and when Prince [Nxumalo] came in, with two strikers they pressed a little bit higher, we had to find better solutions on our build-up and once we got the momentum going, we stabilized a little bit.
“We looked a little bit better, we had more control up until the last minute where we lost a little bit of our structure because of the red card.”
He added: “Well, look in football these things happen, Denis will always remain Denis but what is important for him is to check and analyse.
“I always say to people there’s five mistakes or six before the actual mistake that we see and at times we only focus on the final product.
“There was a build-up of certain elements and even in that moment, the back pass, then we get to the back pass of Grant Kekana and we got to the back pass of Mosa and even before Grant passes to Mosa, Mosa is saying, there’s a striker, because they were two “don’t give it to me” but then it comes he had to react a little bit because there’s pressure coming to him,
“But okay good, this is the price we pay for being a side that plays from the back, a team that builds it’s situations from the back but we have to cut out the mistakes because we have to get to the level where we’re competing for the [CAF] Champions League. It’s very important that we get to that level where we have zero tolerance for mistakes.”
