Rowberry fumes at penalty decision

JAMES Rowberry slammed referee Sam Allison for not giving his side “a stone-cold penalty” at icy Broadfield Stadium, leaving the Newport County boss to reflect on “two points dropped” in a 1-1 draw.

To Crawley fans, Dom Telford’s 84th minute equaliser meant justice wasn’t seen to be done after their side clawed its way back into a game that had been dominated in the first half by County’s possession-based football.

But while the visitors enjoyed 70% of the ball for the first 45 minutes, they didn’t do much with it. Two shots on target, the best of them from Kevin Ellison, was a pretty meagre return from their superior statistics.

It seemed as though Kwesi Appiah’s header from a poorlymarked free-kick was going to be the decisive score for The Reds shortly after Matty Dolan went off with a head injury. Telford had other ideas and County were able to escape with a point.

What could have been a fourth defeat in his last five games ended in a draw and Rowberry felt it should have been more.

He was quick to point a finger at Allison for not awarding his side a penalty in the first half when Aaron Lewis went down in the home box under a clumsy challenge.

“We invest a lot in coaching, leadership, management and infrastructure at football clubs and I think there has got to be a duty of care to invest in the development of referees as well,” suggested Rowberry.

“I felt we should have had a penalty. I’ve seen it back and it was a stone-cold penalty.

“A lot of the decisions didn’t go our way and we couldn’t get any real flow into the game because of the decisions of the referee.

“After the Swindon game, their boss Ben Garner told the press he was laughing with me at some of the decisions. It was the same with John Yems at Crawley, where I was saying that I couldn’t get my head around some of the decisions.”

In the end, County slipped one place to ninth in the table, but are only two points behind Port Vale in fifth.

They have to lick their wounds and get ready for a long trip to Colchester Untied tomorrow night.

Whether or not Dolan will be fit to make that trip after suffering a second head injury of the season is in the lap of the medics.

There is a break for the team after that game because County are out of the FA Cup, but Rowberry can ill afford to play fast and loose with his talisman.