This week’s review of the Tuesday evening game against Peterborough for manager Paul Simpson brought little in the way of surprises, with most of the fuzzy areas surrounding the contentious decisions cleared up.
“My overriding thought on that game is that feeling at the end when the goal nestles into the bottom corner and the celebrations afterwards,” he said. “That outburst of emotion is my overriding thought.
“Looking at the game, if I’m honest, my thoughts are the same as I felt during it. I thought they killed us early on through their sheer pace, but we were patient out of possession, which I knew we’d need to be. We pressed in the right areas and had opportunities because of it.
“I was disappointed with the goal, it’s a good delivery, I’ll give them that, and you ask first contacters to go and be aggressive, which the Peterborough player was over the top of Fin Back.
“I just felt as though we could have dealt with it a bit better, but I thought there were a lot of good things in the game. Probably not enough to deserve to win it, but certainly enough to get a point out of it.”
Often part of the review includes comment from the PGMOL on the decisions, either in support or with explanation for any errors made.
“No, I’ve had nothing, and to be honest I’m not even asking for anything because I’m at a point now where I think it’s a complete waste of space,” he told us. “I have to fill a referee’s report in and mark the referee on different things.
“It’s a bit unfortunate because I thought he looked fit, but I don’t think he worked hard enough to get into a good enough position to see the hand ball - I don’t think he had any help from his assistant for that either.
“I thought his communication through the game was good, which is another thing I have to mark them on, and his overall decision making wasn’t horrendous. The major decisions are the important ones.
“All of the evidence I’ve looked at of the hand ball, I think I’ve looked at four different angles now, it’s hand ball, there’s no debating that one.
“There’s one video which you might think the defender got the touch instead of Sean for that one, but there’s three videos that show Sean got the first touch, then their defender collides with his foot, so I don’t really know if that one is conclusive.
“I’ve just learned it isn’t going to change, and it doesn’t actually make me feel any better when I get an apology from PGMOL, or from one of the referring coaches. We just have to take it on the chin and get on with it.
“I’m not asking for feedback from them, I’ve given the referee my mark, which isn’t very favourable, but I’ve given him what I think he deserved for his major decisions.”
And, of course, there was the matter of the red card shown to keeper coach Dave Timmins just after the final whistle had blown.
“At the moment we’re just going through the information on that,” he explained. “He’s been sent the charge today and we’re trying to get the evidence because the officials’ version of events is the same from all three of them, and whether that’s what was said or whether that’s a coincidence, it’s different from Dave’s version of events and from other people on our side.
“I’m waiting to get some sort of conclusive evidence. I’m not calling either side liars, but there’s a discrepancy between the two versions of events. I’ve looked at the videos and I don’t see the things the officials said happened on the video, so I can’t really say what will happen.
“We’ll put it together and make a decision on what we think is the right way to go about it. We have until next Tuesday to respond.
“As it stands at the moment he will be involved in the game at Bolton on Saturday and then, after that game, we will know where we stand in terms of when the information has to go into them, how quickly it gets turned around and what will happen if he’s found guilty of it.
“It’s a shame because I do think we have to be in control of our emotions. I was angry and disappointed because I felt as though we’d had a bit of an injustice against us, there’s a certain way you have to go about it and unfortunately the referee thought that Dave stepped over the mark.
“It’s a new one on me – I didn’t know what happens to an official when he’s sent off. I’m told he’s allowed to be at the game, he’s allowed to have communication during the game but can’t be on the playing surface before, during or after. That’s something we have to deal with if we accept the charge, or if we contest it and he’s found guilty.
“Basically he’s been accused of acting in an aggressive manner, they’re saying foul and abusive, but that doesn’t tie up with the other version of events.
“Unfortunately as it stands at the moment it’s three officials with identical version of events against one. So we have to weigh up what’s the right way to go about it.”