Chippa United coach Kwanele Kopo has explained why he decided take off Andile Jali at halftime against Orlando Pirates.
The Chilli Boys started their Betway Premiership campaign with a 2-1 defeat to the Buccaneers on Wednesday night.
Jali started for his new club and managed to open the scoring with a wonderful strike, but he did not come out for the second half.
Read: Late Show: Pirates Seal Comeback Win On Jali Return
"For the first 20 minutes they had a problem with us and you could see that in many moments we came out of the press, it's just in the final third that we were not really clinical, that's what we were looking to do and that's why Andile, with his experience, ability to play [scored]," Kopo told SuperSport after the game.
"And after we scored, the last 15 minutes of the first-half, Pirates picked up that we had a block and brought Van Rooyen in, to try and neutralize us and we struggled a little bit to adjust to that, hence we struggled.
"But also Andile [Jali] had a problem with his hamstring, we made a gamble to start him, he hasn't trained for three days this week but we needed someone of his character, experience and technical ability," Kopo said.
"But once we lost him at half-time, the adjustment to create the block…I think we ran out of legs. It's a reflection of a team that is not match-fit at the moment because of a struggle of [not] getting friendly games in pre-season.
"But I think we showed a different Chippa team, a possession-based and very tactical Chippa team and I'm very proud of the players and we can only build from this."
