Quote Originally Posted by GUNTERYY36 View Post
The build up is irrelevant to whether or not the ref should have awarded a pen. But it's interesting you use the expression 'make the most of it'. That's one of a family of modern day euphemisms to rationalise gamesmanship in football. Others are 'made a meal of it', 'simulation', 'take one for the team', 'professional foul', etc. They all amount to the same thing...cheating. Pure and simple. But such behaviour is not confined to Derby players, it's all part of the modern game. The sad thing is that during the course of the game we the fans (including me) demand the ref give our team decisions in our favour even though it's patently obvious he's been conned.
‘Make the most of it’, in this instance indicates my opinion that Lawrence probably could have stayed on his feet but opted to go to ground in an effort to make it clear that that the defender had caught his standing foot.

That’s not cheating...had there not been any contact it would have been, but there was contact, albeit slight. We, as a team, have come unstuck many times recently when much more blatant ‘penalties’ haven’t been given and we’ve paid the price, so I don’t blame Lawrence for, as I described, ‘making the most of it’.

He endeavoured to leave the referee in no doubt that he had been caught...had there been no contact I would honestly argue that he should have been punished retrospectively but, imo, the defenders boot caught Lawrence’s and that’s all there is to it...no cheating, no retrospective punishment...and the ref wasn’t conned.