Mystified Murray Davidson believes the St Johnstone players deserved a proper explanation from referee David Dickinson for his game-changing penalty award to St Mirren.
But they didn’t get one on the pitch and the veteran midfielder isn’t expecting one to be offered now that the game has passed.
Saints were furious that Dickinson pointed to the spot just before half-time when Alex Greive went down in the box with little or no contact from Jamie McCart behind him, giving Connor Ronan the opportunity to level the match at 1-1.
And his dismissive attitude compounded their rage.
“I better watch what I’m saying,” said Davidson.
“I’ve not seen it back, only live. I don’t need to see it back.
“Everyone makes mistakes, myself included, but I don’t understand how he can give it. I genuinely don’t.
“We’ve got to do a lot of things better but it’s a huge decision at a big time in the game – when we are about to go in at 1-0.
“The most frustrating thing for me is that you try to ask the referee a question and he wouldn’t answer or explain his decision.
“All he kept saying was to go away or he would send me off because I’d already been booked. It’s frustrating.
“As a team there are things we can do better. Take away the referee’s decision, there are certain things we can respond to better.
“So we’re not making excuses, but it is there for everybody to see. It is not a penalty.”
Go away Murray, you’ll get a second booking
Davidson, whose team have suffered a number of awful decisions from SPFL officials over the course of the Premiership campaign, added: “I’ve said it for years, it is such a difficult job being a referee.
“I wouldn’t be a referee.
“But I’m asking a question and so is our captain Liam Gordon. He won’t answer.
“If the referee says: ‘I thought it was a handball or a foul’ then you say fair enough. That is what you’ve seen.
“Five times I said that I just wanted to ask a question. I wasn’t swearing. He said: ‘Go away Murray, I’ll give you a second booking’.
“We won’t hear from a referee. He’ll go away and will referee another game this week.
“That’s the way it is.
“We’ll never know why he gave it.”
St Mirren extend their undefeated start to the new year while St Johnstone drop into bottom spot⬇️ pic.twitter.com/DZDQ1z88Fg
— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) February 9, 2022
Back at the bottom of the league, two points behind Dundee, Davidson knows that the Perth side can’t allow the defeat in Paisley to turn into another spell of bad results.
“We’re in a position right now where we’re in a battle,” he said. “There is no getting away from that.
“We need to string a couple of results together. The performances in patches in the last three or four weeks have been better.
“Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll get a couple of decisions but we need to do a lot of things better.
“We need to go on a run of results where we get three or four wins. We feel we’re capable of doing that.
“It’s all well and good me saying it, we need to do it.
“We need to keep spirits up because you can see we’re short of confidence.
“It’s times like this you need to work even harder.”
