Mamelodi Sundowns coach Pitso Mosimane hailed Ricardo Nascimento’s performance but slammed Anthony Laffor’s display during Wednesday’s 1-0 win over Maritzburg United.
Hlompho Kekana struck home a trademark thunderbolt to give his side all three points at Loftus Versfeld Stadium.
However, the Team of Choice did provide Downs plenty of problems with Nascimento called upon to defend with composure on more than once occasion.
With that said, Laffor did not produce his best game of the season and appeared to make the wrong decision at key moments in attack.
Speaking to SuperSport TV after the Premiership clash, Mosimane said: “The game is also about results. I think it was a difficult game. As you could see they fought hard and as I said they were going to play out wide using the pace of (Keletso) Makgalwa and we dealt with it earlier.
“I think we need to give credit to Ricardo [Nascimento] with everybody saying he is slow. He is not the fastest, but he has got the brains also because you can be fast and not close down the angles.
“He dealt very well with Keletso, our player did very well. This is what we saw when our players are on-loan. He gave us a hard time. He wanted to score against us and you could see that.
“First half decision-making especially on Laffor, both repetitions were not falling more for him. He made the wrong decisions.
“Also, there was a little bit of rush because he knows he has to score and seal it and that’s what killed us because we wanted to score early because he knows we are playing on the break.”
