Manqoba Mngqithi hails Ronwen Williams' display

Mamelodi Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi was delighted with Ronwen Williams' display in their opening day win over Cape Town City.

The Bafana Bafana international was thrown straight into the Sundowns line-up, with Denis Onyango named on the bench for Friday's encounter.

Mngqithi was delighted with how Williams commanded his area when Sundowns were under pressure in the second half as he secured his first clean sheet.

"He had a very good performance I must say, his save kept us in the game, that save with the right I think that's one of the top saves and he gave us a lot of stability on crosses and diagonal balls that were coming into the box," the Sundowns coach told SuperSport after the game.

"Very exciting to see him performing the way he did inside a critical match."

Mngqithi admits the match was a great spectalce on the night, but feels they were not clincal enough.

"I think the game was won on intensity, if you check our high presses and our counter-presses I think first-half we had nine successful high presses," Mngqithi told SuperSport TV.

"Probably lacking on the shots at goal, I think we only had one from those very successful high presses but our counter-presses very good.

"The game was very close, possession we wanted to dominate the field and to dominate the ball, that's what we did. Creating chances, we created a lot of scoring opportunities but we were not clinical enough," he said.

"And I do think after we scored the second goal we lost control of the game, the game too transitional and we were never really stable on the ball.

"At one point one felt, 'Hey, maybe we should have brought an 'AJ' [Andile Jali] just to control the game' but hindsight is always the best sight.

"Because the way they were coming we felt we also wanted to impose with our intensity, with Mothobi [Mvala] and the rest of the guys that we brought in."

Check out the action from Sundowns' win over City: