Cape Town - AmaTuks coach Shaun Bartlett believes he had good reason to leave Lennox Bacela and Thabo Mnyamane out of the squad for their 1-0 defeat to Highlands Park.
The striking duo watched from the stands as the Tshwane side suffered their second successive defeat in their promotion/relegation campaign at the Makhulong Stadium, after losing to Mbombela United in their opening match of the playoffs a fortnight ago.
Bartlett insisted the decision to drop the two forwards was based on their lack of focus leading up to the match.
"That was a decision made by the technical team as we knew that it is going to be a difficult and high intensity game," he told reporters.
"For the last couple of months, Mnyamane has been linked with a couple of clubs. Lennox has been around and is one of the experienced players, and I don't know what his plans are for his future.
"We decided as a technical team to take players that are prepared to fight and to see how we can get the best out of them in order to get a result.
"In the last couple of games, that was not evident from those particular players (Mnyamane and Bacela), hence the fact we chose the players that would give us what we need," Bartlett concluded.