Tinkler: Maritzburg lacked the necessary intensity

Cape Town - Maritzburg United coach Eric Tinkler lamented his team's lacklustre Premiership performance on Tuesday as they drew 0-0 at Orlando Pirates.

It was a scrappy game at Orlando Stadium which saw numerous fouls from both sides, eventually leading to a red card in the 61st minute when Happy Jele earned his second booking.

Despite their numbers advantage The Team of Choice couldn't make it count and instead had one of their own players sent off 17 minutes later as Kwanda Mngonyama saw red for the visitors.

Although Tinkler was satisfied with a point, he was left disappointed with his team's overall performance.

"We weren't really good to be brutally honest; I don't think we played with the intensity required for this game. We needed to play with a much higher intensity especially in the first-half, there were so many opportunities on transitions to really go and hurt them," Tinkler told SuperSport TV.

"But we didn't show that, we didn't really show that intent, because of that we started to drop off, we gave them a lot of space and the quality that they have, they going to come and hurt you.

"So, we tried to rectify that at half-time and I felt first ten, 15 minutes we were a lot better in the second half, I thought we created a few opportunities and threatened them a lot more. They got the red card, our intensity was still not good enough, we should have punished them when they went [down] to ten men and we didn't. We got a stupid second yellow [card] and then we looked like we were playing.

"So, for me disappointing performance overall, really disappointing. Silly sending off to be honest (of Kwanda Mngonyama), you have to take advantage of the extra man, you have cover because they are a man down, there's no need for a foul, I can understand if you're the last man but you're not. So, it's a silly challenge from him to be sent off.

"The intensity was simply not good enough; we'll take a point. Are we happy with a point? Yes, but I expected more from the players to be honest."

- TeamTalk Media