The two giants of South African football will battle each other for three valuable DStv Premiership points at FNB Stadium at 15h00 today.
Maponyane says the odds favour Jozef Zinnbauer's men going into this one.
"Pirates have been on a roll, they've had the better of Chiefs on two occasions back to back, aggregate score 5-0, and the worst they can do is to win by one goal to nil," Maponyane tells snl24.com/kickoff.
"You can't come from 5-0 to lose the game 1-0. It's unacceptable. What would have happened to your confidence? And on the backdrop of the fact that Chiefs have really been struggling for results, I mean you can't even compare the results of the two.
"Pirates haven't really been smooth sailing but they've been grinding the results. So I think Pirates come into this game on an upper hand. And that is why Gavin [Hunt] says the only thing that can help them is just a win. So he's obviously acknowledging and admitting the fact that they have really not been getting results at all."
'Go Man Go' says the fact that Chiefs are going into the encounter as underdogs does not mean they will turn the tables on the favourites as it often happens in football matches.
"They are under pressure, they are underdogs but sometimes being underdog doesn't make you a top dog. You just need to face reality," he says.
"Fulham under pressure knew that they needed to beat Manchester City to survive, but it was mission impossible. So the only best thing for them is to lose decently, which is what they did.
"So some things are unstoppable because of facts. So Pirates will be saying 'let's not allow these guys to revive themselves at our expense'."