AmaZulu Head Coach Benni McCarthy says they can’t be too sad about their exit from the Nedbank Cup for too long, as they need to re-focus their attention on the DStv Premiership.
McCarthy made wholesale changes to the team for the cup game against Black Leopards at Thohoyandou Stadium on the weekend, where the home team walked away 1-0 victors.
McCarthy said AmaZulu had their chances, but perhaps some of the players who came into the team weren’t sharp enough.
While disappointed to exit, McCarthy says there were some performances that impressed him.
“You know it was it was a great opportunity to play a very good team, Black Leopards who’s fighting also, you know battles there at the bottom of the log in the league,” McCarthy said after the cup exit.
“And then they got a good result against Arrows, and now you know they were looking to continue that form that they found. But obviously for us, we didn’t take the Nedbank Cup lightly. We wanted to win, we put up a really, really, good strong team, which we thought can go and cause a major upset and I think it proved in the first half, if we had taken our opportunities, if we’d taken our chances, it could have been a different outcome.”
“But yeah, unfortunately, a lot of the players on the pitch today, they weren’t 100% sharp, because that does happen when you’ve not played for a few games in a row and then you get your opportunity, then of course you need to get your sharpness back. “
“And that’s why we missed a few opportunities there which I felt if it fell for players where we could have had sharper players, fresher players players that plays week in and week out, it would have been a completely different story but yeah, it wasn’t to be. “
“We soldier on and we take good from this because the only good thing that happened here, was now you get a sense of where a lot of the players are fitness-wise, physically and mentally, when you need to call upon them, and what kind of performances we’re gonna get from them and so forth.”
“So I’m happy. I’m happy with what we showcased today. Too bad about the result, but we can’t be sad for too long, because now we need to switch our attention to the league and focus on on the next match coming.”
AmaZulu host SuperSport United on Tuesday evening at the Kings Park Stadium.
