Listen to what Bafana Bafana head coach Stuart Baxter had to say after his side suffered a 2-1 defeat against Cape Verde in their Group D Fifa World Cup qualifier at the Nacionale Stadium in Praia.

The South African national side opened the scoring through Tokelo Rantie, however Cape Verde hit back by scoring two goals courtesy of Nuno Rocha.

“First half, we get our noses in front and I think we had good control of the game. We had a period of about 20 minutes where I said to the players, we got to stay true to ourselves,” Baxter was qouted as saying by SAFA.net

“We went into a backfoot mode, not taking repsonsibility on the ball, losing the ball to easily and it was a little bit of rabbit in the headlights.

“The importance of the game affected a few of the players and they didn’t reach their normal standard. We can find excuses or reasons, I think that’s one of the reasons that we didn’t show focus and composure to keep playing, because we opened the game quite well. We got a goal and we were threatening to get our combination play.

“When they threatened us, especially when they scored, and they scored disappointingly, we got an opportunity at that end, we lose the ball and they counter on us and it’s a little bit sloppy and I don’t think we reacted well to the goal.

“When we came out in the second half, we showed that we can play on this pitch. It was more of an attitude problem rather than technical a problem. Even went Tower (Mathoho) went off, we still created a couple chances.

“We can find the referee as a villian of the piece, we can say the ball boys didn’t throw the ball back but for me that’s not reasons, those are excuses.”

Here is what Baxter had to say: