Jones: Boro players persuaded the officials to change their minds

Hatters boss Nathan Jones felt referee Andy Davies and his officials were persuaded by the Middlesbrough players to disallow James Collins’ penalty during Town's 1-0 defeat at the Riverside Stadium this evening.

With 66 minutes gone, the top scorer stepped up to beat keeper Marcus Bettinelli from the spot, only to see the ball appear to cannon off his standing foot before going into the net.

Although the referee gave the goal to begin with, despite being surrounded by the home players, Bettinelli and his defenders then ran over to the assistant, who hadn't flagged, but eventually signalled he had witnessed the double contact.

Davies then chalked the goal off, awarding Boro a free kick, as speaking afterwards, Jones said: “I haven’t seen it yet, apparently it touched his foot twice, he’s had two touches, so it was the right decision.

“The assistant didn’t give it until they appealed and, I want to choose my words carefully, as soon as they remonstrated, then he changed his mind.

“At no point did he flag and do that. He’d given it, he was on his way back, both of them were, and then they persuaded him to change his mind, and that’s the thing.

“If it’s the right decision then fine, but he hadn’t done that, so that’s what I was angry with.”

Jones wasn’t just annoyed with the referee for the penalty incident either, but the way he handled the contest afterwards, allowing the hosts to get away with what he felt was blatant time-wasting in the closing stages.

He added: “It’s difficult because there were two things I was really, really disappointed with tonight.

“One, our tempo after half time, the way we started the second half as we asked them for certain things and then the way the game panned out in terms of the referee managing it.

“I’m not having a go at the referee saying he was this and that, he needed to handle that better than what he did.

“I would have done what Middlesbrough did, Middlesbrough did the professional thing to see out the game and to slow it down as soon as possible, but the referee is in charge of the tempo and that has to be better as it was borderline a joke at times.

“I understand why they did it and I would have done it myself, so I’m not having a go at Middlesbrough in any way, but there needs to be a way of handling it as this is the Championship.

“But I bet since the sending off, I'd be surprised if the ball was in play more than about seven or eight minutes in near enough 35 and that’s unacceptable, that's not right.

“When you go down to 10 men and you’re fighting for your life and every point is so important, you do everything you can.

“You go down easy and if you're then rewarded for it, you keep doing stuff like that and that’s what happened.

“There was no flow in the game and I just felt he could have managed it better in terms of the way it was.

“In the corner, as soon as anyone goes near anyone, people fall over and they get free kicks, it’s very frustrating when that happens as at times no-one’s touched anyone.

“I berate my players and they're saying ‘what more do you want us to do when you're running alongside someone and they just fall over?'

"There were a lot of breaks like that in the game and I felt like the ref could have handled that better.

“I've spoken to him about it, I haven't had a go at him, I’ve had a go at my players for the tempo second half, but there's so much that could have happened.

"As the game just petered out into, I wouldn’t say it was farcical, but it was not a spectacle I would ever wanted to have paid to go and see

“Praise the lord there was no fans here today.”