Lamontville Golden Arrows coach Vusi Vilakazi said it was painfully bad that his side have lost three KZN derbies to Royal AM this season.
Royal AM beat Arrows 3-1 in extra-time in the Nedbank Cup last-16 at Princess Magogo Stadium on Saturday.
It was the third loss on the bounce for Arrows to Royal AM in 2022/23, having also lost to them in the league twice this term.
However, they were unlucky on Saturday as they completely dominated the game for the large part, but they lacked the cutting edge to put those meaningful scoring opportunities away.
When they had one, in-form striker Knox Mutizwa delivered, reacting the quickest in the referee’s dying time, to cancel out Ricardo Nascimento’s penalty from the first half.
When the game went to extra-time, Royal AM took it by the scruff of its neck, with Levy Mashiane combining well for the second with Sedywn George to see the visitors take the early lead.
Then Mashiane was given another easy goal to score the third, pressing Nkosi Gumede, who came off his line to clear the ball but instead kicked it straight to Mashiane and the ball rolled into the empty, much to Gumede’s embarrassment.
“It is bad,” said Vilakazi when asked by the iDiski Times to have lost three times to Royal AM.
“If you lose away and lose home and also lose in the cup; that is the reason why we wanted to go all out in this game because we wanted to try and avoid that and it was not meant to be.
“But it’s not a train smashed, it’s football and things like that happen. We have to prepare for the next game (on Friday away).”
The mist-match between performances and results is frustrating Vilakazi, who insisted he has had enough to speak about the same thing “my team is playing well ”, but at the end of the game the results are not complimenting the good work of his team.
“I cannot fault the effort of the boys because they gave their all,” said Vilakazi, who shares the coaching role with Mabhuti Khenyeza.
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“I’m tired of saying the very same thing all the time that the team is playing well, but results are something else.
“As much as we were dominating the game the whole second half just before we scored at the end, but I’m also worried I must say about our defensive structure.
“You look at the second goal and the third goal – I don’t even want to talk about the third goal, he (Mashiane) was not even scoring but going to press, but ended up in the net.
“If we have that room at this level, then we are going to be punished by teams.”
