Golden Arrows head coach Steve Komphela insists the 7-1 scoreline was not a true reflection of the game against Orlando Pirates.
Komphela suffered his first defeat on his return to Arrows after the humbling at Orlando Stadium on Saturday evening.
The former Mamelodi Sundowns tactician says Arrows had chances of their own, which they failed to convert.
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"Very difficult match in terms of numbers, the number of goals scored and one would say I don't think they are a true reflection of the scoreboard. It should have probably been 7-5 or 7-6, maybe against us," Komphela told SuperSport after the game.
"There's about three chances, one-on-one that you count. But one doesn't have to look at those from a negative point of view, accept defeat as it is, congratulations to Orlando Pirates, they are very difficult to play against.
"But I think there's a couple of questions we also asked that they needed to respond to but in all honesty again, I thought it was not easy to play on this surface, it's quite soft.
"There's a stage where I could see most of our players were starting to give in, especially in the wide areas.
"When you look at it as a coach, you say, could it be that the SuperSport match took a lot out of us? Could it be that Richards Bay as well took a lot out of us? Because the SuperSport match first-half was 2-0, second half we had to push and make it 2-2 and we really did not have much time to rest but it's not an excuse, it's just what you observe as a tactician.
"But I thought Orlando Pirates took their chances, we could have taken our chances as well. In fact, before they scored theirs, we had a chance that (Kagiso) Malinga missed. I'm sure Malinga had two that he could have buried, (Nduduzo) Sibiya also had one with a left foot and so you count them.
"And easily when it was 5-0, then it could have been 5-4 and it's game on, they get excited and we keep on going. But I'm happy with a whole lot of other things, except the result, the goals we conceded, some were too soft towards the end, two from corner-kicks.
"The corner-kicks that I saw, it's a short corner, we know what needs to happen when they go short, far post not monitored and you look at all those and say, 'No man, this is stuff that we worked on' can we click, can we do it right? And if they can't do it, you can't fault anyone, these are human beings. So the biggest challenge now is to go back, get them up and let's go to the next one again."
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