IRISH CUT UP ROUGH OVER REF
MARTIN O’NEILL blasted Spanish referee David Borbalan after seeing Ireland denied a dramatic victory.
The Irish were trailing 1-0 with five minutes left at the Aviva Stadium but levelled through Jonathan Walters.
Then they thought they had won it through Shane Duffy – only to see his header ruled out for a foul – before the referee also waved away Walters’ appeals for a penalty.
Ireland boss O’Neill said: “I’m delighted to have got the equaliser and I thought that we had a legitimate, good goal disallowed.
“The referee wasn’t totally to blame for our performance in the first half, but I thought he was very poor in the game. Considering he was letting things go during the course of the game – that’s fine, I like referees who let things go – but he seemed to be penalising us a great deal.”
Duffy’s effort was chalked off when the official ruled that defender Stefan Lainer had been fouled, and Borbalan was also unimpressed when Walters fell under Aleksandar Dragovic’s challenge.
Bitter midfielder James McClean was also furious, claiming: “The Austrians had a 12th man today. That’s all I’ll say on that.
“I’m really disappointed because we should have come away from that game with three points, but we didn’t.”
The Dublin draw was more than Ireland looked like getting following a dreadful first-half performance when Martin Hinteregger’s sweet strike handed Austria a deserved lead.