Stellenbosch coach Steve Barker said Sunday’s home loss in the MTN8 was yet another disappointing setback for his side, who now have an uphill task in their bid to get to the final.

Orlando Pirates beat the Winelands side 2-1 at the Athlone Stadium on Sunday to take a handy lead to Soweto for the return leg of the semifinal on 24 September.

Stellenbosch lost for the third time in eight days, with their hopes handed a massive setback when centre-back Thabo Moloisane was sent off after only 32 minutes.

They also had Devon Titus sent off on Wednesday when they lost 2-0 at home to Kaizer Chiefs in DStv Premiership action.

“It’s tough when you go down to 10 men again, in the space of sort of three days. But in saying that, I thought we started the game really well,” said Barker of Sunday’s match in front of a capacity 22 000-strong crowd in Cape Town.

“One of the aims was to not allow them to have control of the ball and I thought that worked really well. I think we put a bit of pressure on the two central midfielders and so they didn't really have the rhythm that they always seek to have. I thought we disrupted their game plan in that regard. I felt in possession we were able to keep control of the ball and get into their half with good sort of control and I think that created a little bit of problems for them,” said Barker.

SURPRISE LEAD

But it all changed with Moloisane being sent off for a lunging tackle on Patrick Maswanganyi, although Stellenbosch took a surprise lead before the break.

“I felt that we deserved to go into halftime not conceding and we got the goal just before halftime from the set piece, which, obviously changed our mentality. We set our structure, knowing that they're going to have a lot of possession because of the extra man and their technical ability. And I thought we really played well, we kept our shape, we denied them space.”

But Pirates equalised through Zakhele Lepasa.

Barker added: “You're still thinking it's not the worst result considering you're down to 10 men to finish the game with because then you can go away from home and then you only need to win the game. And so for us to concede late obviously makes the task far more difficult.”

Pirates grabbed a late winner from Deon Hotto’s stoppage-time header.

“But at the end of the day, it's a war and there's two battles. We've lost the first battle but we haven't lost the war yet. You can be rest assured that we will go to Orlando and we'll be as creative and courageous as we can to get ourselves back into the game. And you know if we could get a goal at Orlando and then it becomes nervous for them. But that is a worry for another day. I think we've had a tough week, played three good teams and I can honestly say that in all three matches, I feel that we have closed the gap rapidly even although the results didn't go our way,” said the Stellenbosch coach.