Kaizer Chiefs defender Fabian McCarthy had envisaged the end of Amakhosi's Absa Cup campaign, coming under a thunderstorm of confetti and fireworks, on the winners podium on a cool evening some time in May.

As he and his teammates successfully defended the trophy they won a year ago, instead Chiefs’ Absa Cup dream ended in a hailstorm of the dreaded penalty shoot out at the first hurdle against Golden Arrows in Rustenburg on Sunday. In what was Chiefs’ first defeat to Arrows in four Cup games contested between the teams since 2002, The Amakhosi failed to progress beyond the round of 32.

Talking to kaizerchiefs.com for the first time since the exit from the Absa Cup on Sunday, McCarthy spoke of his disappointment about The Amakhosi’s elimination from the Absa Cup.

“Being the defending champions we were obviously aiming to go far and make a successful defence of the trophy, I feel we let our selves down by being eliminated in the shoot out,” said Fabian.

The Amakhosi vice captain furthermore explained that Chiefs could have avoided going to a penalty shoot-out and should have wrapped up the game in regulation time. He continued, “going into the game I some how knew that chances would be at a premium at both ends, that is exactly what happened, for us it would have been ideal to have scored converted one of our first half chances and that would have been the game for us”.

Fabian insists that the team wanted more than anything else to hold on to their trophy, and had prepared long and hard in the week preceding their Absa Cup opener towards achieving that goal. “Winning the Absa Cup last year was a very special occasion for the team as we had some tough games on the road to winning it in 2006. Taking into account how hard we worked to win it last year we were more than looking forward to keeping it in the trophy cabinet at Naturena,” added Fabian.

McCarthy has also said that one could read the disappointment etched on the faces of the players when they entered the change room. “People might say that we did not play well and perhaps there was no fight from us. Those kinds of statements are far from the truth, we wanted more than anything to beat Arrows and be in next weeks round of sixteen draw.

“To know what it meant to us to be knocked out so early on when the competition is still in its infancy, one needed to be in the change room after the match and on the team bus home. There was not a lot of talking on the bus home, it was just a bus full of disappointed people, who should have instead been contemplating their next step in the Cup”.

Having seen his dream to add another winners medal to his personal collection of trophies disappear, what’s next for Fabian and his teammates especially with Mamelodi Sundowns in a strong position at the forefront of the league. “Sundowns are leading the pack at the moment we need to keep our heads up, and keep up the pressure on them by winning our remaining eight games of the season, we need to a maximum number of points from these games to ensure an exciting finish to the title race. We will keep that as our objective for now and see how things pan out, we will be aiming to finish off the season with a flourish of goals,” concluded Fabian.