Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Miguel Cardoso says the title race is not over despite Orlando Pirates dropping points on Wednesday evening.
Masandawana cruised to a 3-0 win over Richards Bay, while the Buccaneers lost at home to Sekhukhune United.
The results saw Sundowns open a 12-point gap on Pirates, who still have two games in hand. When Cardoso was informed of the result of his title rivals, he was surprised but insisted his side need to look at themselves only.
“I’m really surprised, you can understand from voice, because I didn’t know,” he said when made aware of the Pirates result.
“Obviously it will depend on ourselves. There is still five games to play and things are not done. For sure our opponents will not give up and we need to make points and points…
“Obviously when we can enlarge the advantage, it gives us more comfort. But it doesn’t take nothing from the way we should do. We have five tough matches to play.
“The next one is already away in Cape Town, with Cape Town City there is a team that is fighting and has it’s own objectives.
“We should respect ourselves, we should respect the opponent, respect the opposition – not sleep on what we did. When you sleep on what you did, then you have problems.
“We played one more game today, five more games to go. If we got extra advantage fantastic, but it something we should manage. It’s to keep on going, we need to win our matches.
“I will not give rest to my players. They need to push themselves. This championship is tough, there is still a lot to go. Let’s everything that is going to happen, but we have in the next six weeks, the five remaining games.
“We know it will be tough, but we are motivated, we are happy. We are aware of the responsibility we carry, and the level of our opponents and we respect them. To respect them we need to do our job, be strong, keep training, keep working and until the end.
“Only with that attitude we can win the championship. A lot to go.”
