NQU feel hobbled by ref
A FRUSTRATED North Queensland United coach Michael Brooks believes three incorrect refereeing decisions led to Cairns FC goals in Saturday’s 4- 2 loss at Brolga Park.
Cairns ( ninth, 10 points) leapfrogged NQU ( 10th, nine points) on the National Premier Leagues Queensland ladder by taking all three points in awful conditions.
The visitors led 2- 0 at halftime and went on with the job in the second half, but Brooks was adamant his side didn’t get an even break from the officials.
“I’m not happy with the fact we did concede four, but three I believe were directly caused by incorrect decisions made against us,” he said.
“One of our players was taken out in the lead- up to their first goal, which wasn’t reported by the referee or the linesman and it was pretty obvious he’d been taken out.
“Then a penalty call ( went against us), which in my opinion wasn’t a penalty.
“The fourth goal the ball went out off them, the referee gave it the other way and we didn’t react quick enough.
“It’s very frustrating that referee decisions are deciding the game for two weeks in a row.
“I hate blaming referees for anything because they’ve got a tough job to do and I accept that, but they shouldn’t be deciding the games.
“In all honesty the referee didn’t have a bad game ( overall), the problem was he made three mistakes at critical points of the game, which cost us three goals.
“The boys fought hard and worked their arses off for 90 minutes. To get nothing from it because of things out of our control is a bit frustrating.”
Stephen Blackburn’s goal in the 56th minute gave NQU some hope, but Cairns’ replay through Tomas Murphy seven minutes later took the wind out of their sails.
NQU will look to arrest a twogame losing streak when they host Brisbane Roar Youth on Saturday, April 7 after the Easter break.
“We’ve got to keep working together as a team and now the ( local) league’s starting up after Easter, we might have the chance to look at the local players,” Brooks said.
“If any are performing, we could bring them in to see if they can make the difference and give us the edge we need.” NPL QUEENSLAND CAIRNS FC 4 ( J Taylor 23’, C O’Hare 29’ pen, T Murphy 63’, J Carroll 79’) bt NQU 2 ( S Blackburn 56’, M Benjamin 89’) at Brolga Park, Townsville on Saturday.