The abysmal standard of Scottish referees has come under attack from two Premiership managers.
The performances of Iain Brines and Calum Murray were heavily criticised with Derek Adams and Stuart McCall hinting that lobbying the SFA pays dividends.
Penalty decisions, one given one not, were at the heart of the outbursts with both bosses letting off steam after seeing their side lose points in the final match before the end-of-season split.
Brines, who replaced Spot-Kick Norris at half-time during the St Mirren v Motherwell, awarded the home side a penalty with four minutes left to play paving the way for a late winner for the home side.
“A long ball came at the back post and the ball hits Stephen in the eye socket and the bridge of the nose and flies out to the edge of the box, and the crowd shout,” McCall recalled.
“The linesman, who is looking right at it 12-15 yards away, nothing. The referee, from I think 30 yards away at the other side of the box, gives a penalty.
“Stephen doesn’t rant and rave about things. He is an honest guy. Obviously his arms are up when he has jumped but it has hit him flush in the face.
“That decision alone has cost us three points because I felt, as the game was petering out, we were not only quite comfortable defensively, but I felt we were going to hit them on the break. We had seen the danger out.”
The Motherwell boss added: “He gave the decision, he felt it was handball. They are honest guys, they give what they see or what they think they see but I think when you give a decision like that, you have got to be 100 per cent sure.
“That’s all managers tend to do after games, moan about decisions. But maybe I’m too nice and don’t ring (Scottish Football Association head of referees) John Fleming and send him letters, but some of the things that have gone against us this season have been quite alarming. But that puts the icing on the cake.”
The previous night at the Ross County v Inverness Caley Thistle match Adams was just as angry hinting that his club is overlooked in the corridors of power.
“We’ve had it the whole season,” the Ross County boss claimed ignoring the claim that honest mistakes balance out over the course of a season.
“We’ve had a couple of sendings-off that were very soft. We had Kris Boyd scoring against us for Kilmarnock when it was a foul.
“Kiss has been sent off at Kilmarnock when we were winning. At Hearts, Richard Brittain was sent off when we were winning.
“I could keep on going. Tonight was another example of a small team not getting the decision.
“There’s no doubt about it – we’re a small team. We don’t have the supporter-base to pick up the phone and go on a radio show and have a go. We don’t have it.
“With a bigger club, they will pick up the phone and have a wee rant – and people will take notice. Ross County fans won’t do that.
“We haven’t been getting the big decisions this season and that’s cost us a good number of points. It’s up to somebody else to look at the footage and the decisions that were wrong.”
It’s unclear whether Vincent Lunny will call either manager to Hampden to explain their comments which clearly refer to decisions going against their club over a long period.
It’s not known whether referees will go on strike over the matter with media darlings Stuart Dougal and Kenny Clark unlikely to comment on any matter that doesn’t involve Neil Lennon.
