For the umpteenth time this season‚ embattled Orlando Pirates coach Eric Tinkler resorted to his hollow-sounding resolution that his team would work harder to turn around their fortunes on the domestic scene. This was after yet another defeat‚ this time a 1-0 result burgled by relegation-threatened Jomo Cosmos‚ saw his side fail to embark on the difficult climb up this season’s PSL standings.The Soweto giants‚ who took the Caf Confederation Cup by storm in going all the way to the final last year‚ are still marooned in a scarcely believable 12th place on the domestic front‚ having won just four of their 14 games‚ drawn the same amount and lost six for a total of 16 points.Yet Tinkler‚ who has lately had the look of a coach at a loss for what to say to get through to his players from the Pirates bench‚ has vowed to work harder — as opposed to try something new — to solve a crisis which has sent most Buccaneer fans looking for available coaches.“Obviously the players are extremely disappointed — including those who made the individual errors‚” he said. “We’ve just got to keep working very hard and believing we’re doing the right thing. I don’t think it’s a case of us playing poorly. Tonight we played quite well.”Tinkler conceded that despite knowing what to expect from an ultra-conservative Cosmos in the Potchefstroom rain‚ they still couldn’t do much about changing the result in a must-win game for them: “We knew Cosmos would look to play on the counter‚ defend really deep and be very difficult to break down.“They’re not a team who concede many goals. We worked extensively on how we needed to break them down. We created a few chances — we had one cleared off the line in the first half‚ and then missed a penalty.“We made one error in the first half and almost got punished. Then (we made) another in the second and we did (get punished).”Depending on how one looks at it‚ Saturday’s defeat comes at an especially inopportune time for Pirates as the Soweto Derby looms this weekend.“We wanted to go into the derby on a victory. But that has happened in the past — we’ve lost then gone into the derby and performed extremely well‚” said Tinkler‚ referring to Pirates losing 2-0 to Golden Arrows ahead of the previous derby and going on to win it 3-1.But as ever this season‚ he was left to reflect on yet another missed opportunity by a team which is starting to look psychologically frail: “Tonight’s three points was very important for us — that’s the disappointment for me.”Pirates meet Kaizer Chiefs in the Soweto derby at FNB Stadium on Saturday. ..