South Africa coach Stuart Baxter has praised his charges following their crucial 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier victory against Libya on Sunday night.
Bafana needed to be at their very best as they got the desired result in order to book their place at the continental showpiece to be held in Egypt later this year.
"We knew that we had to come here and play well. We had a game plan. It was difficult to settle under the game plan because do you go flying in trying to get the winning goal or do you sit back?” Baxter said after the match in Tunisia.
"I went for a combination of both, and the longer the game went the more I thought the players played well,” he added.
"I think the first 30 minutes it was with the crowd at their backs and a bit of nerves and anxiety from our part. We gave them a couple of balls that they should not really have got and they nearly got in. But I think after that the players were excellent.
With Bafana leading 1-0, Libya received a reprieve when Darren Keet was adjudged to have raised his boot dangerously high and gave away a penalty which was duly converted. But it mattered little as Percy Tau netted his second minutes later, restoring the away side's advantage.
However, Baxter did suggest that it was a harsh decision by the referee to award the penalty.
"I thought the penalty was harsh and I thought the players showed incredible character to come back and get 2-1. We made a couple of substitutions to help us in our defending," he concluded.
As a result of the win, Bafana finished Group E in second place, unbeaten with 12 points from six games.
