Johannesburg - Orlando Pirates captain Lucky Lekgwathi admits the team will miss the services of Benni McCarthy in their MTN semi-final second-leg fixture against Mamelodi Sundowns on Sunday.

The Buccaneers take a 3-2 lead into the Loftus Stadium clash in Pretoria and Lekgwathi tells Football365.co.za he hopes the likes of Bongani Ndulula can step up to fill in the void.

"We will definitely miss him as you know that he is one of the top strikers but we have quality strikers that have been learning from him like Ndulula, Thulasizwe Mbuyane and Ndumiso Mabena so they have to take over from where he left off," he said.

"Sundowns are sort of wounded lions since we beat them 3-2 in the first leg and as you know a draw is not good enough for them so I expect them to come out strongly, so it could have helped if we had Benni because chances are we will get some scoring chances when Sundowns are in attack. Ultimately, all we need to do is make sure we are ready mentally and physically."

Lekgwathi has played down Pirates' 2-1 loss to Maritzburg United in Wednesday's PSL fixture, insisting it hasn't dampened the spirit in the camp ahead of the much anticipated clash against Sundowns.

He added: "Now we lost to Maritzburg United and people say the moral is going down, but no the spirit is very high. We know that we are playing the final before the final and we are looking forward to another tough game. We just have to make sure that we go there and continue where we left off.

"We won't go there and defend; we will play our normal game. It will be dangerous for us to defend if they can get one goal they will go through, so for us is to go there and play our normal game. Our plan will be to make sure that they don't score and for us to score an early goal."