Quote:
Originally Posted by Outback Ozzy
Once again, a totally inept referee. Fair do's, by the letter of the law, Hunt had to go, but so should the Stevenage player! However, a bit of common sense should have prevailed and a yellow card at worst, not red. Totally spoiled the game and I have to say IMHO he didn't get any better. I don't know how many times a Stevenage player jumped for the ball leading with the arm and I lost count of how many times they were chatting rather friendly to the referee. They were looking to reduce our team to less than the minimum to complete a game. Yet when a Stanley player went down after being fouled, they were told nothing doing. That guy deserves to be retired forcedly as I have to say he was the most bias referee I have seen in ages, the absolute worst.
Saying that, Stanley were far the better team for all of the first half and defended valiantly in the second 45. Well done the team for a very workmanlike performance under enormous pressure.
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Outback, I've a different take on the sending off. We've had this referee before and know what he's like. For a player of Hunt's experience to put himself in a position after a couple of minutes where he's forcing this referee to make a decision is poor, bordering on unprofessional. He's let his team-mates down, notwithstanding whether the decision was harsh or not.
That said, our 10 men were magnificent, particularly in the first half. We pressed them back and looked the more threatening. The second half was a battle and Maguire had his best game in a red shirt, took his goals very well and I thought Jones was also impressive. Davies was also more decisive than of late.
I thought their game management after the sending off was niaive. They should have looked to keep the ball, stretch the game and make us chase. They didn't and didn't look like they had the quality to do so. Thankfully they left the no. 46 on the bench for 80 minutes as he looked very classy when he came on.