Referee Brines' error costs Motherwell

[jwok]

We were struggling to hold on but killed off by a poor decision. - view external link (www.motherwell-mad.co.uk/rprt/mtch/referee_brines_error_costs_motherwell_829741/index.shtml)

[KMCAA]

Brines always was, always is and always will be an absolute sham of a man, GTF and retire!

[wellin]

We can blame brines all we want, and he did s**** on us from a great height, but our inability to deal with high balls cost us. Especially at important times in the game. Not for the first time this season.

[steviex]

We can blame brines all we want, and he did s**** on us from a great height, but our inability to deal with high balls cost us. Especially at important times in the game. Not for the first time this season.

Exactly we were utterly desperate today. St Mirren got what they deserved even without Brines making a James hunt of it. Every ball they delivered into our area had danger written all over it. Its not often I disagree with McCalls after match comments but today he was at a different match from me.

[Wellup4it]

[quote="steviex" date="20:29 on 05 Apr
Exactly we were utterly desperate today. St Mirren got what they deserved even without Brines making a James hunt of it. Every ball they delivered into our area had danger written all over it. Its not often I disagree with McCalls after match comments but today he was at a different match from me.[/quote]

Every manger and his dog knows that we can't deal with crosses, high balls, corners and free kicks. So why do we cheaply concede so many? Defend higher up the pitch and instruct whoever is playing in midfield and full back to prevent such high balls. I don't care how good an attacker is in the air he can't score if he doesn't get the ball.

[wellin]

The way we sit back in games every time we take the lead means we are going to give a lot more set pieces away during the course of the season.

[LawSteelman]

It's a cop out to blame today on the referee. Yes he had a shocker and made a serious blunder with the penalty but we got what we deserved in the end because yet again our defending was catastrophic for the entire game and to throw away a 2-0 lead yet again after doing so at Easter Road last month is unprofessional and galling. We simply don't have what it takes to soak up pressure so why we constantly sit on leads is baffling.

I find McCall's post match comments claiming that the penalty decision "cost us the three points" pretty pathetic and embarrassing to be honest because an equaliser had been coming for a while as we were all at sea whenever the ball came anywhere near our box and that apart, even if the penalty was soft we conceded again 60 seconds later so we obviously switched off. Its typical nonsense from McCall to try and take the heat off his and the team's shortfalls by focussing on a refereeing decision. He did the same in the Aberdeen cup tie with the disallowed goal b

[dazlhigh]

Bitterly disappointing today. I'm very well aware of our own shortcomings, but the comments of 'Aw naw' around me when the ref change was announced tell their own story. OK, we shot ourselves in the foot eventually, but that wasn't a penalty, and we seemed to be penalised more often than Saints for what looked like similar challenges.
And am I the only one who finds the way we're supervised at St.Mirren really almost offensive? I go the length and breadth of the country with the 'Well; I may be wrong, but the police presence in Paisley seemed much heavier than it is at other venues. What on earth were the mounted police for? I don't remember anything like that at Firhill, for example. What's going on?

[Wellup4it]

Maybe a fan boycott of St Mirren's ground is what is required? The difference in policing tactics between our games at Paisley and Celtic's games at Fir Park needs to be scrutinised.

[wellowell]

Once again we get beat and lawman on never on when we win IMO McCall is right we never played we'll and had dodgy moments today especially in 1 st half but going into last 5 mins I did feel we had survived the storm and a mega dodgy penalty lost us the game so McCall was not pathetic he was saying what all real well fans thought .Aberdeen have had dodgy decisions all season and have taken advantage of it I can't think of 1 major decision that has gone for us this season but feel free to prove me wrong. Just because we don't play well doesn't mean we deserve dodgy calls to defeat us all I want is a fair crack of the whip and this season imo we have not had it

[Sup3rw3ll]

The ref did not cost the game. The ref gave a penalty that gave the opposition 1 goal. This was not enough to win the game.. The other two goals conceded in open play and defended poorly AGAIN cost you the game. Sort your defence out and don't cop out with poor excuses.

[Wellup4it]

In truth we lost due to a combination of reasons. We didn't play well and let Saints have far too much freedom by defending far too deeply. As we often do when in the lead, we sat back. Playing this way leaves no room for error by anybody, player or referee. The in steps Ian Brines with a typical blunder.

All that said we have been victim to a continuous string of poor refereeing decisions all season whilst our rivals have benefitted from such decisions.

Reliabliity of referees is outwith our control but good defending is not. We need to concentrate on that for next season.

[tweed]

We all know goals change games. For the first hour we were totally outplayed and the only reason we were winning was because we were clinical when the chances came along. Our defending at set plays was disgraceful.

But after about 60-65 minutes I think St Mirren chucked it. They started giving away daft free kicks and stopped using the wings which had served them reasonably well and started lumping aimless balls forward with no direction or tactic.

It looked like we had stemmed the tide and to be honest the last 20 minutes although they had more territory and ball, I really thought it looked more likely that we would win 3-1 than they would equalise.

So whilst over the 90 minutes I think St Mirren deserved to win, I believe if Brines hadn't given them that penalty we would have seen it out.

[Wellup4it]

You're probably correct. Its a real shame though that the game's main talking point is a refereeing mistake that turned the game.

[wellowell]

Woke up and feel exactly same as I did last night the decision by brines was scandalous why have assistant referees in better positions than yourself and totally ignore them Beaton done it in league cup game assistant gave a goal he wrongly over rules from 30 yards behind play same as yesterday assistant lookin straight at it from 15 yards gives nothing but brines from 30 yards behind gives it. I am fed up hearing referees make genuine mistakes and are totally honest well sorry I don't buy that some decisions this season against us have been baffling a referres job is one of the hardest jobs in the country and would not want to do it for any amount of money but as in any job when you have the tools at your disposal you should use them as in assistant referees. Brines never even came over to consult his assistant and although I agree st mirren were better team they had run out of ideas by the last 5 minutes and IMO we would have won game is brines played fairly so yes I can blame our