Hibs ace Lew: Darren didn’t lose the head
LEWIS STEVENSON insists his mate Darren McGregor is innocent of the red-card charge that Hibs have vowed to appeal.
The skipper was sent off during the touchline bust-up at Easter Road on Wednesday when Morton’s Kudus Oyenuga fell to the turf appearing to feign injury from a butt.
But Stevenson, who was in the thick of the melee, insists he had a perfect view of the incident and insists McGregor did not touch the English striker. With Hibs vowing to appeal the dismissal and subsequent ban, Stevenson pleaded his skipper’s case.
He said: “I don’t think Darren made contact – at all. He’s gutted.
“I don’t know if he has a chance of an appeal but he doesn’t think he touched him and that was the one thing I saw!
“I don’t think he touched him either. He’s basically gone over to tell the boy to get up.
“We want to show team spirit and when one of your team-mates gets hurt you want to show you care. But you don’t want to get sent off.”
While Stevenson insists he saw no wrongdoing by his captain in the rammy after Oyenuga launched a reckless tackle on Jordon Forster his recollections were hazier when it came to the scenes that followed.
Managers Jim Duffy and Neil Lennon had to be dragged apart as the situation threatened to spiral out of control.
An SFA disciplinary investigation is already underway and perhaps with that in mind, Stevenson offered little evidence of the drama.
He said: “I’m going to be really boring but I didn’t see much. My head was down. It was a bad tackle.
“It was a high-stakes game and these things can boil over. There weren’t too many bad tackles but just one can spark that.
“Fortunately, Jordon is alright, I think it was his shoulder rather than his leg that was hurt.”
The dust has little time to settle before both teams face off again with Hibs due to travel to Cappielow a week on Saturday.
Lennon has declared they are “looking forward to it” as he launched a staunch defence of himself and his players.
But Stevenson says they can’t let allow the bad blood fester.
He said: “It’s difficult to shake hands at the end but that’s football.
“We’ve got to play them again soon so we can’t let it boil over too much.”