ant coach Mandla Ncikazi took over the reins and believes his side were unlucky to end up on the wrong side of the result.19:T6a6,

“I thought we were in control before we conceded the goal; it was a tame set piece by our standards, and I don’t think we deserved to lose the first half because we created enough chances to come back, but it didn’t happen.

“In the second half, we dominated the way one would expect us to play, and then we conceded from a transition. But honestly speaking, according to the game, we were not supposed to lose.

"If you count the number of chances created, we should have won but it’s a game of football; chances created and not scored are not good enough. We lost the match, and I also thought the intensity of the opponent was a bit higher than ours, but I wouldn’t point fingers at our rhythm.”

Pirates dominated possession but couldn’t break through a stubborn Gallants defense, which was impressive under new coach Abdeslam Ouaddou. Ncikazi added that some of their game plans weren’t executed perfectly on the day.

“According to our game plan, we wanted to get behind their defense, but we didn’t do that enough. I thought we gained some balance in terms of that, and we still created chances, but our offensive side wasn’t at its best, hence we conceded so many transitions.”

Asked if the league is out of reach, Ncikazi insists the chase is far from over—there’s still plenty to play for.

“I wouldn’t want to look at it that way; some teams have played 20 games, which is four more than us. I wouldn’t want to even look at it that way; let’s just win our next games, and I think the race is still on.

"We’ll take it one game at a time, and we will continue doing that until told otherwise,” he concluded.

1a:T67c,“I thought we were in control before we conceded the goal; it was a tame set piece by our standards, and I don’t think we deserved to lose the first half because we created enough chances to come back, bu