Cote's quotes: Alty 2 Crawley Town 3
By Connor Murphy
Comment
GRAHAM Heathcote hit out at Blue Square Premier officials after his side's survival hopes were severely dented by a 3-2 defeat to Crawley on Tuesday night.
In the end, the Robins were well beaten but the game hinged on the sending off of Joe O'Neill on the stroke of half time.
When the Alty striker challenged for a high ball with Jamie Stevens it appeared to be innocuous enough but the referee had other ideas and gave him his marching orders for a second bookable offence.
At that point, Alty were still level at 0-0 but, playing the entire second half with 10 men, they were simply unable to cope.
Jon Paul Pittman and Tyrone Thompson fired Crawley into a two-goal lead after the break and although Colin Little capitalised on a defensive mix-up to provide hope, Thomas Pinault's 84th minute screamer sealed the Robins' fate.
Little's injury time goal was nothing more than a consolation and, clearly hurting after the final whistle, Heathcote pointed the finger at the referee.
"You can say what you want but teams will probably not decide who stays up and who goes down, you're in the hands of a given individual's decisions," the Alty boss told SAM Sport.
"On Saturday the other team had two sent off and today it's gone the other way and that decided the game. It decided the game on Saturday and it decided the game today.
"It's not about the game of football, it's about officials sending players off. It's too easy to get sent off these days and it's affecting games dramatically.
"The referee said Joe led with his arm, which I really can't believe.
"He's refused to discuss any of his decisions with me and if an official refuses to discuss his decisions that says it all about his performance, although the assessor will probably give him 99 out of 100."
12:19pm today