Chippa United coach Brandon Truter said concentration let his side down as champions Orlando Pirates scored three goals in the last 30 minutes to win their Betway Premiership clash 3-0 at King’s Park on Sunday.
“I think for 60 minutes, the structure was good; for 60 minutes we were in the game. I think Orlando Pirates threw absolutely everything at us,” Truter said after the clash which left Chippa still winless for the season after having drawn their opening two fixtures.
“We knew it's a team that wants to play in the space behind us because of the speed, and that's why times we had to drop deeper. So it speaks about concentration, especially during a crucial period of the game.
“That’s been our Achilles heel in the past two games as well. After we conceded the second goal our intensity dropped,” the Chippa coach added.
“The goals we conceded were just the space in between the centre back and the full back, which space we should not give away. The second goal, from a set play, we’ll have to look at it, to see if the communication was exact.
“Then the third goal was a mistake from Boy (Mohlometsi), who had an absolutely marvellous game, a good game. Second one in a row now for him.
“So, yeah, a lapse of concentration. I wouldn't say we’ve had a bad game, but yeah, these are moments where we can improve them. But it's not a concern really, for me. We should rectify it as a team, like I said, our structure was good.
"But we’re also a team when we concede we tend to just lose concentration, our structure. So it's all a bit mental. It's nothing that we can't fix.”
Truter said conditioning could have also been a factor.
“It’s the start of the season, so maybe it takes the players a little bit of time to get out of the blocks. There also wasn't much time to recover after playing on Tuesday,” he added.
Chippa hosted Richards Bay in Dobsonville, Soweto last Tuesday, having no available stadium in the Eastern Cape.