Kaizer Chiefs coach Arthur Zwane commended the fighting spirit of his side as they came from behind to beat Stellenbosch FC 3-1 on Sunday and move up to fourth spot in the standings.
Zwane said they had expected a tough encounter and that is what they got from their hosts in the DStv Premiership clash at the Cape Town Stadium.
“It was never going to be an easy one for us. But we had to dig deep. But if there's one thing that I'm pleased about, is the way we started the game today. I think, in the first two minutes, we should have scored and overall we should have got scored at least four to five goals but we weren’t clinical enough.
“Then against the run of play, we committed a mistake that was costly,” said of the error from Njabulo Blom that allowed Nhlanhla Magaga to put Stellenbosch 1-0 up.
“And we found ourselves in a situation when once again, we were chasing the game, but I must commend the character of the boys in coming back. It's never easy once you go down against the team of Stellenbosch’s calibre.”
A record-breaking hattrick of penalties from Bonfils-Caleb Bimenyimana brought Chiefs back into the game.
“We forced them to make mistakes. That led to the penalties. And fortunately, we scored goals from penalty spot, but we had a number of chances that you could have increased the score.”
Zwane said he was disappointed that when Stellenbosch skipper Mogamad de Goede was sent off that his players then did not add more goals, given their numerical advantage.
“I think we could have capitalised on that and scored more goals. We actually took the foot off the pedal a little bit. That’s a worrying factor but something that we will work on going forward,” he added after the match.