Orlando Pirates interim co-coach Mandla Ncikazi urged his charges not to be slow learners after the Soweto giants were held by Cape Town City on Saturday evening.
The Buccaneers are now winless in two PSL matches following their 1-1 draw against the Citizens as they were unable to build on their first-half display at Cape Town Stadium.
"Two different performances from the same team, the first half we dominated. I thought we played the way we planned to play," Ncikazi told SuperSport TV.
"Credit to the opponent, I think they changed after the forced substitution of [Nathan] Fasika, I think they changed their formation.
"When we went to half-time, we expected two things, a change of personnel and a change of formation. I don't think we adapted well to the way they changed second-half."
The former Maritzburg United head coach was disappointed to see Mduduzi Mdantsane level matters for City - cancelling out Happy Jele's opening goal which had handed Pirates the lead.
"We kept on dropping the line of confrontation backwards, which is not what we planned. I just wish the team that played first-half continued to play second-half but it didn't happen in our team," he continued.
"Disappointed with the result. I just wish first-half we scored when we had the dominance, I wish we had scored maybe we would have a different response right now.
"We wanted to press as high as possible, I thought we are one team, according to the stats, that has got a high percentage of successful press when we hire a press.
"That's an indication we wanted to continue there. But I thought one mistake that we did, we never stayed on the line of confrontation that we planned, maybe because of a change of formation of the opponent.
"But I thought we never exerted ourselves fully in the positions that we wanted to press and then you get problems that surfaced after that, that was the outcome."
Ncikazi also disclosed that they had a plan to stop City's influential full-back Terrence Mashego, who has been one of the best left-backs thus far this season.
"From the previous match that they played against Swallows you could see the effectiveness of Mashego, they are playing a three-man defence, we wanted to cater for that," he explained.
"Mashego's got very less responsibility defensively, so we wanted the space behind him. I thought we kept him quiet a bit first-half but second-half not the same team, just my disappointment is on that."
"I wish we continued with the same team that played first-half. But it's a work in progress, let's use the first half as a measure of our team going forward."
The 52-year-old tactician pointed out that his charges should learn from the result as fifth-placed Pirates failed to climb up to into the top four on the league standings with a victory over City.
"Pirates must win all matches, that's the expectation, I'm just disappointed we did not do what we planned, we're far off the objectives that we made for ourselves but it's a lesson, it's not a loss," he added.
"Let's learn quickly though, let's not be slow learners and try change the result. This team deserves more than what we're giving."
