Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Manqoba Mngqithi says the club's Bafana Bafana stars will not just walk into the team following their exploits for the national team.
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Mngqithi was forced to shake things up for his CAF Champions League second preliminary round encounter against Mbabane Swallows and make do without a contingent of national team players.
The likes of Teboho Mokoena, Aubrey Modiba, and Khuliso Mudau - all of whom did duty for Hugo Broos' side against Uganda and South Sudan respectively - were rested for the weekend's encounter.
This saw the likes of Asekho Tiwani, Lebogang Maboe given a chance - which by all accounts, was duly taken.
Now, with Sundowns set to get their domestic campaign underway with a Tshwane Derby on Tuesday evening, Mngqithi says that there are no guarantees for Bafana Bafana players to be reinstated to the starting XI.
"To say we were resting them [Bafana Bafana players] is a very good point. But sometimes you rest someone and the one that gets an opportunity to play does well. Then the question is, what do you do now? Do you take out the one that has done well and take out the other one because he was out for this match?," he said to journalists in the post-match press conference.
"Sometimes that does not work at a club like Sundowns because these players are all good enough and waiting for their own opportunity and when one is presented and they take it with both hands, they have to continue sometimes.
"If Bafana players happen to get the opportunity to start the next match, they would be lucky but it would be unfair to the players who have performed very well in this match.
"We have to look, we still have some training sessions, we don't know what is going to come out. There could be niggling injuries that we were not aware of but the truth of the matter is we have to respect the performance of those who were given an opportunity to play," he concluded.
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