Richards Bay co-coach Pitso Dladla says there are a number of areas they need to work on following their loss to Kaizer Chiefs.
The Natal Rich Boyz had a double blow early in the game, as just after going a goal down from Siyabonga Ngezana's header, they also went a man down after goalkeeper Salim Magoola was red-carded for handling a ball out of the box.
However, the KwaZulu-Natal side held their own and restricted Chiefs to just a narrow 1-0 win.
"Ja, I think it was a game whereby we put ourselves under pressure within the critical phase of the game, ten to 15 minutes we did not want to concede," Dladla told SuperSport TV.
"But it happened, it's a set-piece and again after that we got a red-card but I don't think the red-card exposed us this much because it was not a game with a lot of passes, lot of combination play.
"Whereby in terms of numbers, in terms of numerical advantage, maybe we were exposed in the middle, on the sides but no, it was not that kind of a game.
"It was a game of transition, whereby the team that was willing to cover more distance could have won it, we were willing. I believe we covered more distance but it was not meant to be," he said.
Dladla, however, admitted that they were exposed with the spaces behind the defence and complimented Magoola and substitute goalkeeper Neil Boshoff for keeping them in the game for long.
"And you look at that kind of a game, congratulations to Ngezana, he scored that goal and I'm still gonna watch that game and see the other things," he went on.
"Because we also thought we could get a goal from a set-piece but it's also a lot of areas that we need to work on. We were exposed a little bit in terms of the space behind the defence, when the goalkeeper…
"Remember before the game started we also spoke about it, that they'll be looking for the space but obviously because they scored the goal early, we wanted to add numbers upfront and that's why we were exposed at the back," he said.
"But congratulations to our goalkeeper Salim Magoola and also Neil Boshoff, they saved us," he added.
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