Maritzburg United head coach, Fadlu Davids was delighted to advance in the MTN8 but admits it's never easy playing against Mamelodi Sundowns.
Read: Maritzburg End Sundowns' MTN8 Dream
Evans Rusike struck in the second half to hand Maritzburg a 1-0 win over the Brazilians on Sunday afternoon.
Davids thought his charges deserved the progress to the next round after putting in the effort.
"You have give the players credit for the work they put in today, they stuck to the plan," Davids told SuperSport after the game.
"It's never easy playing against Sundowns, you don't want to sit that deep but they push you back. They could have scored one or two goals in the end.
"But credit to the players, they deserve to go to the next round for all the work they put in pre-season and today.
"The stuck to the task, it's never easy coming here. I think the first half is what we wanted to do, not allow them to settle on the ball. But we have a lot of stuff to work on but well don to the boys, they deserve it."
Denis Weidlich echoed Davids' sentiments after picking up the Man of the Match award.
"We fought so hard. We had a very hard pre-season, we knew what will come. We did very well against Sundowns last time, we made some mistakes but we learned from it. For this season, we set so much targets so this is brilliant to qualify for the next round," he added.
