Northcote City coach Goran Lozanovski has voiced his displeasure at some of the refereeing decisions in their 3-1 loss to Ballarat Red Devils, and has called for action to be taken.
Lozanovski was sent to the stands after some incessant protesting to the official during the contest, with a penalty decision in the second half the tipping point for the Northcote boss.
While he wass disappointed to be sent off the ground, Lozanovski had this to say.
“What kills me and quote me on this – what kills me is that you work ever so hard to get yourself back into the game and I don’t normally say this but the referee’s made a bad decision, we should’ve had a penalty on Rixon and we didn’t.
“Five minutes later the scenario was probably a little bit lighter, not as forceful as Rico’s was, and he’s given a penalty so that sort of inconsistency for me is what frustrates me and that was a turning point.”
Just prior to the penalty decision, Lozanovski was also unhappy with the fashion in which the referee handled the situation, with play was waved on despite Evan Kounavelis being floored following a late tackle.
“He got clobbered way after the ball’s delivered and he continues to play on and Evan was on the ground hurt so things like this sort of get coaches over the top and tipped over and it happened to me today,” Lozanovski said.
“Unfortunately I got myself sent off the ground which is disappointing but decisions like that make or break a team and as far as I’m concerned I could lose my job over it. I’m not going to accept that sort of stuff and the NPL needs to pick up their act on officials.”
Despite all that however, Lozanovski conceded the result was far from acceptable, with his side creating a multitude of chances to score against Ballarat.
“It was disgusting the result today,” he said.
“In saying that I thought we played ok and had a lot of possession and created some half chances, half opportunities and probably had enough opportunities to win a couple of games.
“They punished us with two balls, one over the top and one in the guts and scored two great goals and no disrespect to Ballarat, they had a game plan, they stuck to it and it worked for them.”