Cape Town City coach Eric Tinkler has revealed the emotional scars left on his team following last weekend's MTN8 final defeat to Mamelodi Sundowns.
The Citizens, who fell to a dramatic penalty shoot-out defeat to Masandawana in the MTN8 final on Saturday, bounced back to winning ways on Wednesday evening after recording a narrow 1-0 DStv Premiership win over Chippa United.
Following the match, Tinkler revealed his relief at recording the victory after the "psychological" blow he and his players suffered as a result of the weekend's defeat to Sundowns.
"Psychologically, I think this game was always going to be difficult, both psychologically and mentally for the players considering how we lost the MTN8 final," the former Bafana Bafana defender said.
"You could see the effects of that loss still at training on Monday and even yesterday [Tuesday] so that was a big concern for us leading into this game.
"It was a tough game. We started fairly well, I thought the first 20 minutes we looked okay but [there were] too many changes.
"I think we made five changes, three of them were enforced, so there wasn't that continuity and consistency and we struggled against Chippa. We didn't really create any chances to score.
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"They're a difficult team to play against because they lay very direct and look to play off the second balls, and a lot of crosses into the box.
"It became a very, very ugly and cagey game for us. We made a change at half-time hoping that the change would get us going a bit more, a little bit more fluidity in our play, a little bit more possession and that we'd create chances, but we didn't even create one chance.
"Against Sekhukhune, we had 30 box entries and lost 1-0. Today, one shot on target, one goal, and we win the game.
I'll take that I think the team will take that because mentally and psychologically we needed the win. So, I'm happy with the three points so we'll move on and forget about this one."
Wednesday's result saw City climb back into the top eight in the log standings, and they could climb further with a game in hand over all of the teams above them, bar table-topping Sundowns.