Durban - Mamelodi Sundowns needed a last gasp winner on the stroke of full-time to down a resilient Chippa United at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.
Peter Shalulile, as he always does, was in the right place at the right time to fire home a well delivered corner and ensure the Brazilians snatched three vital away points.
Sundowns co-coach Manqoba Mngqithi, although pleased with his side's victory, laid into the league's officiating, blasting their time management skills and ability to allocate relevant stoppage time on more than one occasion this season.
"I'm very unhappy about what our officials are doing now. How many times did the goalkeeper go down? How many substitutions were made in the second half and they only added four minutes?" he questioned after the match.
"In a game where at least seven or eight minutes should've been added, and this has been happening many times, we see these time delaying tactics in the PSL and if I had lost the match people would be saying I'm complaining because we lost the match.
"The truth is, in the PSL we're playing far less minutes on the pitch, the last time we check, the ball is on the field for just 43 minutes in a PSL game but we're supposed to be playing 90 minutes and the referees aren't making sure that stoppages are limited and accounted for."
The defending DStv Premiership champions haven't had the cleanest of runs in the league so far, with two defeats to their name in their opening seven games, an unfamiliar association if recent seasons are anything to go by.
90th minute, scores level, can we find a winner? 👀
Peter Shalulile: "Yes" 😎#Sundowns #DStvPrem pic.twitter.com/fJCKB9bR1R
Sundowns were met by an inspired Lloyd Kazapiwa in Chippa's goal but victory against the Chilli Boys lifted Mngqithi's men to the top of the table, a result the coach saidd brought relief and maybe a change of fortunes.
"We needed to win this match, we had told ourselves we needed to win this match. I was unhappy with the number of shots we took in the first half even though their keeper did well," he admitted.
"We've lost matches that we shouldn't have lost and if you think back, we didn't deserve to win that match against Kaizer Chiefs with that scoreline if you look at the action lines in that game.
"But there are games which we drew and lost where the performance was better and we felt we should've won by that margin so for us to win this match was very encouraging for the team," he concluded.
@SmisoScribe