Chiefs were the better side

Cape Town - Orlando Pirates caretaker coach Eric Tinkler was not making any excuses after his side lost 2-0 to Kaizer Chiefs in Saturday's Soweto derby.

READ: Chiefs eye next hurdle

While Chiefs only made sure of the win with a 92nd-minute goal from Siphelele Mthembu, Tinkler admits that his team were never really in the contest.

"I thought we stared off very nervy, have the ball way very cheaply," he said after the match.

"We settled a little bit, but not enough. We played in patches, there were patches when we looked ourselves, played well, created opportunities."

The Pirates stand-in coach also had to watch on as his side was tactically out manoeuvred by Stuart Baxter's AmaKhosi side.

"We were very separated - the Chiefs back four were playing very deep in the first half and that created problems for us.

"There were massive spaces in between our midfield and our strikers - we couldn't link our play and were losing the ball very cheaply.

"Half time I spoke about the importance of being more compact, we always looked more dangerous when we did that.

There was also too much space between our defence and our midfield and that's ultimately where they were creating chances with the likes of [Siphiwe] Tshabalala and Bernard Parker running into those areas and spaces and it cost us.

"But truth be told over the 90 minutes, Chiefs created a lot more that what we did.

They are a team that play with a lot of confidence, they are on great form at the moment, congratulations to them," Tinkler concluded.