East Kilbride Thistle boss' ref blast as nine men are held to draw by Carluke Rovers

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Aaron Connolly says a mixture of poor refereeing and ill-discipline cost his side victory as nine-man East Kilbride Thistle were held to a high-scoring draw at Carluke Rovers on Saturday.The Jags boss watched his side go two goals up twice during the clash, only to be pegged back twice by their hosts, amid plenty of controversy at the John Cumming Stadium.Michael Blues and David Gray fired the Jags into a 2-0 lead at half-time, but Rovers were awarded two penalties by referee Kieran Whalen to claw their way back level.A double from Adam Edgar looked to have done enough to put Thistle on their way to victory, but after David Gray and Matt Gray both saw red late on for dissent, Rovers punished their visitors with two late goals to earn a share of the spoils in the West of Scotland Third Division clash.But Connolly was far from impressed with the influence ref Whalen had on the game.He said: “That is probably as bad as I’ve felt this season.

I don’t want to speak too much about refereeing decisions but we’ve had two very, very soft penalty decisions go against us and we’ve lost two players to red cards in the last 10 minutes of the game when we are leading 4-2.“The red cards are justified because it’s ill-discipline from two senior players but, for me, it stems from the referee losing control of the game a little bit, and we’ve paid the price.“Our players haven’t been as disciplined as they should be and we have shot ourselves in the foot a little bit because of that.“We should have the game out of sight before that.

We were well on top and 2-0 up at half-time, when it could have been four or five at that point.“The game should have been over and done with and Carluke have barely threatened us.“I’m bitterly disappointed for