Bafana Bafana head coach Hugo Broos was a 'little disappointed' not to beat Uganda but praised the team for rescuing a point.
Bafana went to the break with a 1-0 lead from a goal by Lyle Foster but the Cranes scored two quick goals that caught South Africa flat-footed early in the second stanza through Denis Omedi and Rogers Mato.
However, a late goal by Thalente Mbatha salvaged at least a point for Broos' charges in their opening game of Group K.
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"What went wrong, something I was afraid of before the game. So Uganda was today sharper than we are and we know why, we have players in our team who don't have enough competitive games," Broos said on SABC Sport.
"And you saw that second-half, we missed that power in duels, we gave two goals away and you have to try to have the draw at the end of 90 minutes. What we showed then, after the 2-1, is what I wanted to see.
"I'm happy that we played a draw, a little bit disappointed, because I would have liked to win this game."
When asked about an error by Mothwa, particularly in the second goal scored by Mato, the Belgian brushed aside the criticism of which players deserved to start.
"This is something you can say now, maybe I should have done this, maybe I should have done that. But you never know, maybe if you start with the team of the second-half and we have the same game and then there is a question, why we didn't play with the guys who play normally?" Broos said.
"So I'm just really happy with the reaction of the team when it was 2-1, one point is better than defeat."
The 72-year-old mentor went on and suggested that some players did not show up, as they lacked match sharpness.
"The first-half we had chances to score the second and the third goal and you know in such a game and also [Oswin] Appollis was dangerous in the first-half, but you can see this is the guy who didn't play the last weeks," Broos said.
"The more the game is going on, the less power, the less energy this guy has and then we changed it. It changed a little bit, we pushed them back, we hoped we would have a little chance and the little chance came and again I'm happy with the draw."