‘Don’t get too cocky’

Davids warns Maritzburg players after victory

Maritzburg United coach Fadlu Davids has warned his players not to let Friday’s 2-1 away win over Ajax Cape Town make them too overconfident.

It was Maritzburg’s first game of the year and Davids is guarding against complacency. “There is a thin line between confidence and complacency‚” warned Davids after the victory moved Maritzburg into a top eight place.

Davids said that on the back of bitter experience as he recalled the start of the season when Maritzburg began the league campaign with three successive wins and were the toast of the town in the first month of the new season.

“Maybe winning the first game of the new year is not such a good thing‚” he joked after the win at the Cape Town Stadium.

“Last time we started well also and then had a bad run.”

After those opening three successes in August‚ Maritzburg then went 12 games without a victory. The last eight of those games came without scoring.

But they stopped the rot when they downed high-flying Cape Town City 4-2 in Durban at the beginning of December and have won three of their last five games.

Davids called the showing against Ajax “a dominant performance” but his side need to do better when in command and finish off the game earlier. “But we got what we deserved‚ which was the three points.”

Next up for Maritzburg is a fixture on Friday night against Bloemfontein Celtic.