Ryan: We’ve got to take the blame
RYAN PORTEOUS says Hibs’ players and not referee Bobby Madden were to blame for them not seeing off Celtic.
The Easter Road defender was irritated his team failed to convert a 2-0 lead into victory.
Despite being second best in the opening period, Jack Ross’ troops stunned the champions by surging in front after the restart when Jamie Murphy netted the rebound off a Kevin Nisbet penalty.
Murphy created a second for Nisbet from a Porteous free-kick before late drama denied the hosts all three points.
Celtic were awarded a spot-kick 11 minutes from time when the ball struck defender Paul McGinn on the hand, with Odsonne Edouard netting.
In stoppage time, Porteous felt Shane Duffy may have fouled Sean Mackie as they wrestled for Leigh Griffiths’ delivery before Paul Hanlon failed to properly clear and Diego Laxalt thumped home.
The defender insists responsibility for the late setbacks lies at their own door and said: “Their penalty is one of those ones where it does hit his hand but what is he, a yard away from him?
“How are you supposed to defend in the box with hands behind your back? You need to get contact with people.
“That’s the rules. He’s refereed the game exactly how he’s been told to do.
“Something needs to change as you can’t defend like that in the box.
“It’s not realistic. Everyone can see that.
“The ball [for the equaliser] was put in and Duffy, I think, threw Sean to the ground. It was the referee’s decision and I thought Bobby Madden was good in the game.
“But we can’t moan about decisions or anything like that as, ultimately, we are 2-0 up with 15 minutes to play and we should be seeing it out.
“If you had asked us at half-time we’d probably have taken a point. But the game turned on its head.
“In the first half we had a chance to cause them problems but we thought that earlier in the season at Parkhead and lost 3-0.
“When Celtic or Rangers come to Easter Road you need them to have a wee bit of an off day and luckily for us I think they did.
“In the end we capitalised on it a bit but it was disappointing to concede twice in the last 12 or 15 minutes.
“The gaffer showed us a couple of weaknesses we could exploit with the diagonal for the second goal being one of them.
“Having that bit of belief we went and scored two. From that position you think three points are a must but it wasn’t to be, even if before the game or at half-time a point would have been sufficient.”
Porteous hailed the impact of on-loan Rangers ace Murphy.
He added: “Jamie has been superb since he came in. Even though he’s in the latter stages of his career, he still has that drive and hunger to improve himself and his team and he showed his quality.
“He showed great experience to follow up the penalty then showed physicality to win the header and get an assist. He’s a great asset.”