Venda Football Academy head coach Joel Masutha has opened up about his side took Orlando Pirates to extra-time in the Nedbank Cup.
The Motsepe Foundation Championship side bowed out at the round of 16 stage after losing 2-1 to the Buccaneers on Saturday night.
Read: Erasmus Lorch Fire Bucs To Nedbank Cup Last 8
The former Black Leopards tactician hailed his side's effort after going 120 minutes with the top-flight outfit at Orlando Stadium.
"Ja, know it will be very much unfair and ungrateful if I complain about the players effort," Masutha told SuperSport after the game.
"This is what we expected, we wanted to test ourselves against the best and I feel the boys gave a good account of themselves. I just hope we going to put the same effort in our league games."
Masutha disagreed with the notion that his side were pinned back by the Soweto giants early in the first half.
"No, during our analysis we detected that Pirates is a team that has been scoring early goals," he added.
"So, we planned to go with the medium-block and let them come at us so that we can try and catch them on the break.
"So, I think that helped us a little bit in terms of ball retention but after 70 or so minutes that's now when we came out of our shelves and we started playing so I would say that was really a tactical plan and the boys tried their best to follow everything we asked them to do."
