Orlando Pirates coach Roger de Sa expressed his disappointment at his side’s performance despite their 2-0 Telkom Knockout victory over Black Leopards on Saturday evening.

The defending champions are safely through to the quarterfinals of this year’s competition after a brace of goals from Collins Mbesuma.

But De Sa says they should have won by a greater margin and was unhappy at how they kept Leopards in the game.

“We never felt like they would equalise, but we did not get a grip on the game like we should have, we took our foot off the peddle and that is a concern for me,” De Sa says. “We knew that the second goal would kill them off but we just dropped our level and it was a poor performance after we scored our first goal.

“We made too many mistakes, it was windy and we are not so used to that. We relaxed, that was the problem. The second half we played better and in the end we finished strong and it could have been three or four.”

Leopards coach Sunday Chidzambwa says his side conceded two “easy” goals and he lambasted his defence. He was also upset with the first half red card for Thulani Ntshingila.

“It was another bad day for us, I must emphasise that we gave up easy goals,” Chidzambwa says. “Those goals are easy to deal with, according to me. We should have done better. Pirates scored with the chances they got and good luck for them.

“The defence did not play well today, but had it not been for the red card, we would have done better. It looked like we were playing defensive, [midfielder Jean] Munganga was not pushing forward when we were attacking.”