Orlando Pirates head coach Jose Riveiro says several players are still maturing in the squad as they look to develop a consistent side.
Pirates took the lead over Cape Town Spurs last night in their first league outing at Orlando Stadium for 2024 but eventually dropped two points to miss the chance to go second.
Riveiro admitted the Urban Warriors deserved it after they failed to kill off the game in the first half, which brings it to a total of 27 points lost overall, after 19 games played – in fifth place, 12 points off leaders Mamelodi Sundowns who have three game sin hand.
“It can happen if you have a look right now, we’re playing a lot of young players, some of them making their first steps in the league playing for Pirates. I checked today, and last time we played in Polokwane our average age was 25.5 which was low,” Riveiro said.
“It’s one of the lowest [in the league] and [against Spurs] we repeated the same starting 11, we have many players getting experience, learning and understanding how to behave in different scenarios you face in the game to get consistency.
“We need to be much more mature, in the last four games, three of them we took the lead and not [three points], Stellenbosch, SuperSport and [Spurs], so it’s something that needs to change, to get consistency, we do things well in the beginning, we take the lead, doing a good job trying to find solutions to go ahead.
“But then there are certain moments, three or four games inside the game, you need to beat your opponent in all those periods, and there’s a period we need to do much better, for me it’s after we take the lead, we need to close the game in those moments.
“We can’t let the opponent feel they can go into 60 minutes still alive in Orlando, especially when we play home, it will come, the only way to mature is with experiences, not talking about it, they need to experience, feel the pain and learn, become better players and a team.”
Pirates now turn their attention to the Soweto Derby this weekend where they will come up against Kaizer Chiefs at FNB Stadium.
