A first point of the DStv Premiership season and a clean sheet left coach Kaitano Tembo with a smile on his face despite the fact that Richards Bay’s long winless streak was stretched further to 18 matches and is about to go into a ninth month.
After losing their opening two matches of the season, Richards Bay held AmaZulu to a goalless draw in Saturday’s provincial derby at the Moses Mabhida Stadium.
“It was always going be a difficult game against a well-drilled AmaZulu because they're organised in possession as well as out of possession,” said Tembo, who took over at the start of the season.
“We really needed to dig deep. I thought we started very well; our shape tactically I think we were well organised. We knew that we're going to have moments in this game but we needed to make the right decisions, especially in the final third. I thought that our final ball let us down, we caught them on transition several times but we couldn't just make the right pass. That was a huge letdown.”
But Tembo was still positive about the outcome, which marked a first point of the new campaign for the side that finished 13th last season.
“Credit to the guys that I thought came here with better fighting and mentality. We stuck to our game plan and we've managed to get a point but with the little bit of luck, probably we could have got all three points. But it was a fair game,” he added.
Richards Bay now have little time for recovery before hosting champions Mamelodi Sundowns at Umlazi on Wednesday (live on SuperSport, 5pm kick off).
“We can see that we are a little bit blunt, you know, especially in terms of scoring goals. The first two games we played, we conceded four goals and scored one goal. So it was a start that against AmaZulu we managed to have a clean sheet,” Tembo added.
“But we need to keep working a little bit more in terms of scoring goals. Probably we need someone to come in and help us in that regard. We need someone who'll put goals in. We've got a lot of creative players but we need a little bit more composure in and around the box.”
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