Johannesburg - In an uncharacteristic manner AmaZulu coach Benni McCarthy refused to discuss the controversial late penalty awarded against his team and instead focused on the splendid performance of his charges in the 1-1 draw with Kaizer Chiefs at Kings Park on Saturday.
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Referee Jelly Chavani, after consulting with his assistant Emmanuel De Sani, judged AmaZulu defender Mbongeni Gumede to have handled inside the box, which gave Chiefs No 10 Keagan Dolly the opportunity to level the game at 1-1 with the last kick of the match.
Although McCarthy was visibly upset by the decision, the former Bafana Bafana striker refused to criticize Chavani in fear of censure from the league's disciplinary committee.
"If we talk about the officiating, then you get called to the DC, so it's best I keep it as positive and polite and smiley so that he can be happy," McCarthy said post-match.
"We were not very smart by trying to run down the clock to maintain the lead because Chiefs were throwing a lot of numbers forward and then a loss of concentration. But it was a fantastic performance from the boys. You can't fault them."
Luvuyo Memela’s 47th-minute strike had looked to be enough for AmaZulu to take all three points off Chiefs with McCarthy's gameplan working a charm until the very end.
"We said if we marganalise our mistakes and we don't gift them give aways they won't get into this game because they don't have the quality to open us up, and to break through us to create goalscoring opportunities," he said.
💬 "It's best I try and keep it as positive, polite and smiling so that the league can be happy."
Benni McCarthy shares his thoughts on AmaZulu's draw with Chiefs and the stoppage-time penalty his side conceded.
"We have seen from the last few games that they are still finding their feet so I knew it was a disadvantage for them. If we use the mobility that we do have then they will clearly go a little bit defensive.
"They had a central midfielder Njabulo Ngcobo playing in midfield with Cole Alexander, which is very defensive. We therefore wanted to use our mobility to pick up balls to feed the strikers and it worked very well as we played the one-touch football to get behind them. That's how we scored our goal to go 1-0 up and we could have gone 2-0 up as well, but a good save from the goalkeeper."
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