Maritzburg United coach Eric Tinkler insists that his side didn’t following his instructions during the defeat to Mamelodi Sundowns on Saturday.

The Team of Choice remain winless in the league following their 2-1 defeat against Sundowns at the Lucas Moripe Stadium.

Tinkler’s men now find themselves in 15th place in the Absa Premiership standings with two points after five matches.

‘That’s where our problem lies, we need to listen to the instructions given and we are not listening to the instructions given, because of that we get punished,’ Tinkler told SuperSport TV after the game.

‘[In] the first half we created one or two situations, [Denis] Onyango had to make one save that I can remember. But we got hit on counter-attacks, three, four, five times, from our own corners and throw-ins.

‘A quality side like Sundowns, if you allow them to play through the middle they gonna hurt you and we allowed them in the first half, way too many mistakes defensively. Like I said, we’re playing against a wounded lion, you gotta match them for effort and work ethic. Defensively you have to be solid, they will capitalise on the miistakes you make.

‘I felt in the first half we could have two nil down to be brutally honest. We responded well in the second half, got ourselves back to the game. I don’t really think they caused us much problems from there on, it’s disappointing, you can’t back off. You could have left here with a very valuable point against a very good team and you let yourself down. All that hard work you put in the second half, you let yourself down in the final minute. That’s the disappointment.

‘Because that’s exactly what we discussed at half-time. [The] players need to start listening and learning and stop making the mistakes, because they end up being costly. I said to players at half-time, you have to show character. In the first half we looked like we were afraid of them. I told them forget that the shirt is yellow, imagine that it’s red. I don’t think we’ve done that. They need to show character, it can’t always be us coaches having to uplift footballers constantly. The players need to start taking responsibility and responding in a correct manner. Now we have a tough task against Chippa [United] and then Baroka, these are must-win games. Today a point could’ve been great, we probably deserved it but not in the first-half,’ he concluded.