Bafana Bafana legend Doctor Khumalo has questioned the leadership within the Bafana Bafana squad during a shock 2-1 defeat to Rwanda.
South Africa's bid for World Cup qualification suffered a setback thanks to first-half goals from Innocent Nshuti and Gilbert Mugisha on a dreadful and water-logged pitch at Huey Stadium.
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Despite dominating the second half, Bafana could not find a way back into the match and nearly conceded a third when Rwanda's Djihad Bizimana launched a venomous shot from the edge of the box forcing Williams into an acrobatic save.
Speaking on SABC Sport, Doc Khumalo was unhappy with the Bafana players' somewhat dejected reaction to the scare.
"When we speak football, we have lines, the striking, middle and defense," Khumalo explained.
"In this situation would you be expecting the four at the back to the closing down the player who is in possession and took a shot?
"Defense doesn't mean that defenders of the ones that need to stop [the shooter], strikers also need to take responsibility, even midfielders in this case, to say: 'listen, the guys at the back four are marking but this guy is on the edge of the 18-yard area, we can't allow him to take a shot'.
That is leadership to say: 'hey Mshishi (Themba Zwane), close him down.'
"As captain, he (Williams) should have pointed at one of them to say: 'But it's your fault why did you not stop him?'
"A proper team that has leadership, in that position, a leader or any player that is experienced should have said: 'You were supposed to close him down,' but no for them (Bafana), it was nothing, nothing happened.
"But this is how you grow as a national team because for you to have that social cohesion it takes maybe some months, weeks, it's not like in the club level where we feel each other socially, we understand you.
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"Within the national team, somebody needs to command: 'You need to close him down, yes the captain was mum about it probably because we're too goals down but these are the things that they need to deal with.
"Personally I was scolded by [Niel] Tovey to say: 'Hey it's not about when we position that we can see you, when we defend we want to see you!' This is what we're talking about.
South Africa now turns their attention to the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) set to kick off in January.
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