Opponent Watch: South Africa coach Mashaha worried about passive Bafana Bafana
Bafana Bafana came from behind to secure a 1-1 draw with Cameroon in an international friendly at the Stade de L'amitie in Libreville on Saturday.
The two nations stepped up their preparations for the Africa Cup of Nations finals in Gabon on Saturday night.
The Indomitable Lions drew first blood through a bullet of a free-kick from Vincent Aboubakar in the sixth minute while Bafana had to rely on Sibusiso Vilakazi's 77th minute solo effort to stretch their unbeaten run.
Bafana coach Shakes Mashaba was pleased with the outcome and the spirit shown by his troops, but called for more ruthlessness from his charges if they are to make an impact in the tournament itself.
"It was a good game, (and) you could see the Cameroonians were fighting hard. However we stuck in and fought hard ourselves even when we went down, but I'm happy that we fought back the way we did and we had two or three chances thereafter to go ahead. So, at this point, our main concern is finishing up," Mashaba said after the match.
"The same story happened against Zambia (last Sunday). We need to finish up more efficiently as the tournament approaches. Having said that, I think this game gave us exactly what we needed in our preparation phase and our last friendly (against Mali on Wednesday) will be our final preparation game and it's all systems go for us," he said.
Mashaba admitted that his charges struggled to deal with the physicality of the west Africans, but he hopes that they will be ready before their opening game against Algeria on January 19.
"Our physical presence is something we going to battle against at the tournament. You saw those guys (Cameroon), and how strong they are, our boys really battled tonight as they chickened out of the 50-50 challenges most of the time, but I told them at half-time that they must stuck in because this is what we are going to face in Equatorial Guinea," Mashaba said.
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