CRYING FOUL
Canning furious as struggling Accies fail to get the breaks once again in Highland loss
MARTIN CANNING last night hit out at Andrew Dallas and the wider refereeing fraternity after Hamilton Accies were denied a penalty in their relegation showdown with Inverness Caley Thistle. Accies were trailing 2-0 when goalkeeper Ryan Esson slid in and caught substitute Ali Crawford near the goal-line but Dallas, who had earlier awarded the penalty which led to Inverness’s second goal, awarded a corner to the visitors.
Manager Canning (left) was incensed by the decision and, mindful of a run of calls he perceives to have gone against his club, decided to vent his frustrations after the conclusion of the 2-1 defeat.
He said: ‘I’m very supportive of referees, I never give them a tough time, but that’s just poor. It was a stonewall penalty, I have no idea why it wasn’t given.
‘There comes a point where you can’t keep defending them (referees). You can’t keep on giving decisions against us, it was just poor refereeing.
‘It’s happened before and a referee phoned me up to apologise and no doubt the same thing will happen again this week.
‘I think back to a couple of weeks ago against Ross County where we are winning 1-0 and are very comfortable and then (the referee) goes and sends off one our players. That was later rescinded but it’s cost us two points.
‘If I go back to the Rangers game, some of the decisions there were a joke too. It just seems now, for
whatever reasons, we don’t seem to get them. I don’t know if it’s just because we are Hamilton Accies and nobody cares.
‘But I’m pretty sure if that’s Celtic or Rangers and it’s going to be all over the papers, social media and Sportscene, the penalties will be given or at least they don’t get as many wrong as they seem to do with us.’
Canning’s frustration was heightened by his players’ failure to match the fighting spirit of Inverness on a day when the Highland club knew they could be relegated.
Not only did the win keep Richie Foran’s hopes of survival alive, it narrowed the gap to Accies and the play-off position to four points with three games to play.
Canning knows his team still face a battle to retain their own top-flight status. He continued: ‘All week, everybody has been talking about how important a game this was for Inverness. Nobody said the same about us.
‘I told the players this will be the most important game you play this season. Don’t be fooled. It’s not all about Inverness.
‘We tried to guard against that but in the first half it looked like we were going out to play a game of football and they were going out to fight for their lives.
‘At this stage in the season, the first thing you need to do is fight. They won the battle and stopped us playing.
‘Next Saturday is going to be exactly the same. If we set out against Motherwell thinking we are just going to knock the ball about and open ourselves up…
‘We need to win the battle and that allows you to dictate the game and be on the front foot.’