Crystal Lake head coach Magic Nyalungu has opened up about what he told the players at halftime while trailing 4-0 to Orlando Pirates.
The Mpumalanga outfit made their debut in the Nedbank Cup but ended up suffering a 6-0 defeat to the defending champions.
"It was a big game, I wouldn't put it in a sense that we completely lost, I'd say we learned. We came here as a small team, a newly-established team, gave it all against the defending champions," Nyalungu told SuperSport TV.
"There are positives here and there, I'm proud of these boys, they tried their best, came back to the second-half much better compared to the first-half.
"So that tells you about the quality of the boys that we have. So we'll go back to the drawing board, focus on the league but we'll come back next season for the last 32 again," he said.
Nyalungu knew he had to motivate the players at the interval after a disappointing first half.
"They needed a motivation, going into the interval four (goals down), it's a bit scary, so they needed the motivation and I gave them exactly that because it's not about how many goals they (Pirates) are going to score," he added.
"It's about us expressing the talent that we have, coming from a small village like Ximhungwe, they did exactly that.
"We never had a shot on target in the first-half but when we came back in the second-half, the 17-year-old wearing 17, had a one-on-one but unfortunately the goalkeeper (Sipho Chaine made an exceptional save there, so there were so many positives there," he added.
