John Maduka reacts to Royal AM’s polished win over Sekhukhune United

Following news that the Court of Arbitration for Sport [CAS] had thrown out their appeal to have the FIFA ban overturned, the KZN outfit were eliminated from the Carling Knockout by Cape Town City and then went down to Betway Premiership title holders Mamelodi Sundowns a few days later.

But Thwihli Thwahla bounced back on Saturday afternoon to take all three points from Babina Noko, with Maduka applauding his side’s efforts.

"Yeah, good win, well done to the team. I think the game itself, we started the game very, very good. We were playing one of the best teams in the country and we managed to take the game to the opponents,” Maduka said.

“There were moments also where they did give us problems, whereby they came in our half. I think the mistake that we made, we defended so deep and we allowed them to come into the area where if maybe they were taking shots, they could have punished us but we survived that until we managed to get that goal. Set pieces are one of those that can win you games but can also cost you games."

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Andile Jiyane and Motebang Sera got the two goals that saw Royal AM through, and Maduka believes his charges stuck to the game plan.

"We are a team that defends from forward like I said that first half we defended so deep but even after scoring because most of the time when we score you find that we go back and you are absolutely right that this time we said, no, no, no, when we score, 1-0 is a narrow lead, you can still lose it,” the coach explained.

“They score one, also you are under pressure, you make one mistake, you get punished but the boys did so well in the second half whereby we said our defence must push a little bit higher so that it allows the midfielders to be in the final third so many times and it happened like that because what we wanted is the second goal. “After we scored the second goal, we still said no, let's not go deep because immediately we become so deep, it becomes difficult because now you invite pressure then eventually you end up making mistakes."