Orlando Pirates coach Jose Riveiro says the experience from last year’s elimination by Jwaneng Galaxy weighed heavily on their convincing 2-0 win over the Botswana champions this past weekend in the CAF Champions League second round, first leg encounter.

Playing in front of a packed National Stadium in Gaborone, Botswana on Saturday, Pirates dished out a brilliant performance with goals from Tshegofatso Mabasa and Deon Hotto.

Galaxy beat Pirates on penalties to reach the lucrative group stages last season, and Riveiro is satisfied to have turned things around.

“It was painful to not go to the group stages last season and the reason why was Jwaneng was better than us so we have again the opportunity to go to the group stage.

“More than the motivation we still know how difficult it is to play here, how difficult is this field for a team like us, we know and like I said, it’s one year later we have one more year of experience together,” Riveiro said as quoted by SABC Sports.

“Our players went through many different things after that game, we got eliminated from this competition in a way that was difficult to accept. We are here again after one year, now it’s easy to say with the result on our side that we did well.”

Pirates were also eliminated in the 2010 CAF Champions League by Gaborone United on an away goal rule in the preliminary stages.