Mamelodi Sundowns head coach Rulani Mokwena has opened up on the incident that involved Divine Lunga escaping a red card after an injury to assistant referee Zakhele Siwela, in their 2-1 win over Stellenbosch.
The Brazilians beat Stellenbosch to advance to the Nedbank Cup final but the incident that caught the most attention was Siwela, just before half-time, sustaining a hamstring injury a few seconds before Lunga made a foul that warranted a yellow card, which if it was given, it would have been a second yellow card to the Zimbabwean and he would have been sent off.
However, while referee Jelly Chavani was occupied by dealing with the situation regarding Siwela, Sundowns quickly took the opportunity to replace Lunga and put on Thapelo Morena.
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In his post-match press conference, Mokwena praised the referee Chavani for avoiding "controversy" by not giving Lunga a second yellow card and admitted that the former Golden Arrows defender deserved to get a yellow card for that incident but only because he felt his first yellow card was soft.
"Before I go to the second incident, I thought the first yellow was a bit soft. There's a game I watched and I heard the commentator, who commended the referee and said, 'He's managing the game because that foul happened a little bit too early for the stature of the game'," Mokwena told journalists at Danie Craven Stadium.
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"I stand to be corrected and if I look at that with Divine, I looked at it again and said the first one maybe it's a little bit too harsh, especially also the profile of the game, the time, blah, blah you can go into that space.
"And then of course he puts himself on the edge when he goes for that second situation and it also starts because we allowed the ball to be delivered in that area and then it becomes a speed race. And then it becomes difficult. I think some of them go your way, some of them don't go your way and then we decided to make a sub," he said.
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"Maybe you've got to compliment the referees for trying to manage the game of the semi-final, leaving it 11 v 11 and maybe not causing as much controversy as we've seen in the last couple of weeks and maybe that was the thinking from officials, I don't know. My first instinct is that maybe the first yellow card I thought that was a little bit soft and maybe when he goes for the second one, that's the one he should have gotten a yellow for in my opinion and then you're not talking about whether it should be a sent off or not," Mokwena added.
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