Joe Pryce blasted the performance of the referee after he sent off three players and ‘got every big decision wrong’ in Rutherglen Glencairn’s 2-1 defeat to St Roch’s.
The big top-of-the-table clash in the West of Scotland First Division gave Glens the chance to leapfrog their rivals and hit the summit.
However, after taking an early lead through Jack McIveen and seeing The Candy were reduced to 10 men inside 28 minutes, and an action-packed second half saw the hosts score twice either side of red cards for Glens duo Sean McGuire and Martin McBride.
Pryce was far from happy with his own side’s performance, but was left bewildered by the whistler, whom he claims awarded a free-kick for his side even though a foul was given as taking place on the 18-yard line – which should result in a penalty.
Baffled Pryce explained: “We were on the end of a few wrong decisions from the official.
“I don’t want to blame him because I know we should have been better than we were, but the official got every big decision wrong. Anybody who was at the game saw that and anyone watching the video of it can see it as clear as day.
“The first red card, the boy smashed the ball towards the net and Sean McGuire is less than a yard away from it. The referee tells me he intentionally moved his hand towards the ball – which is not possible because he’s only a yard away. He’s not got time to move his arm.
“We had a penalty incident in the first half which was actually in the opposition box. The referee puts the ball on the 18-yard line, which means it is a penalty. If the foul is committed on the line, it is a penalty and when the players told him that, he just told them ‘no, it’s not’. That’s just factually wrong.
“Martin’s red card was for two bookings and the referee had lost it at that stage. He books Martin from 40 yards away and then runs up to Martin and decides to pull out another yellow for whatever reason.
“The second St Roch’s penalty, their player actually fouls our player and let’s out a big scream, and the referee bought it.
“He was poor for both teams. But we can’t do anything about the official’s performance, we can only look at ourselves and we should have done more in the second half.”
The defeat has left Glens third in the table, two points behind joint leaders St Roch’s and Arthurlie with one and two games in hand over them, respectively.
On the overall performance, Pryce added: “It was a tough game. We know the type of game we get at St Roch’s, it never changes, and I felt in the first half we dealt quite well with their physicality.
“But I didn’t think we coped as well in the second half. The way St Roch’s play, they are always going to get an opportunity against you. They are quite direct and physical.
“In the first half we did well and managed to impose our game on the opposition. Jack McIlveen scored a fantastic goal, we had a one-on-one with the goalie that we missed and their goalie had a couple of good saves, there was also a penalty incident, so we probably should have extended our lead in the first half – but we didn’t. We let ourselves down.”
With a free week coming up, Pryce said: “Things are going to be a wee bit disrupted over the next few weeks. We’ve got no game this week, a league game the next week, then we are off again, play on December 14 and then we don’t play again for almost a month.
“We just have to work hard at training and try to get ourselves in a position so that after Christmas we can have a real run at it.”