Royal AM co-coach Khabo Zondo insists revenge will not be on their minds when they host Orlando Pirates in the MTN8 quarterfinal at Chatsworth Stadium on Saturday at 6pm.

The Buccaneers edged Thwihli Thwahla 1-0 in the DStv Premiership match at the same venue earlier this month and Royal AM will be desperate to avoid another defeat against the same team.

But Zondo, whose side heads into this fixture on the back of a 1-0 victory over Maritzburg United on Wednesday, warned the Soweto giants to brace themselves for a tough encounter as they have a plan to upset them this time.

“Firstly, it should not be like we are looking for revenge. We are going to plan well against Pirates for the MTN8,” Zondo explained to the media after their game against Maritzburg.

“I hope they don’t come here being overconfident that they beat us last time. We are going to plan and make sure that all the mistakes that we did on the day, we can iron them out.”

Zondo said they took a lot of positives from their midweek match that they would work on before their match against the Buccaneers.

“I was a little bit worried about how we gave the ball away. We can never do that against clubs like Pirates. We need to work hard on that tactical discipline and decision-making,” Zondo said.

“You find players passing in the wrong areas and knowing that we don’t have too many players in the middle. Our midfield also struggled to deal with the overload of midfield from Maritzburg. We need to iron that out and put players in the right position.

“But it’s a win that we needed so much. We knew that we were playing well in other matches but the results were not forthcoming.

“But today [Wednesday] we needed to grind [out] a result. We changed a little bit of formation and played with two strikers and also played with four at the back. It paid dividends, although we gave a lot of balls away and we gave Maritzburg too much possession.”