Doncaster denied two ‘blatant penalties’ before late leveller – Grant McCann

Posted Sunday, February 04, 2024 by PA

Doncaster boss Grant McCann hit out at referee Scott Simpson after his side’s 1-1 draw at Sutton.

It was a real battle between two of the bottom three sides in the Football League.

Craig Eastmond’s 78th-minute strike was cancelled out by Lee Angol’s stoppage-time penalty.

But a frustrated McCann stressed his side had two “blatant” penalties earlier in the game not given by the officials.

The first was on Billy Waters inside the first minute, when the striker was booked for simulation, and the other when Jack Senior went down in the box.

Rovers’ chief McCann said: “I’m disappointed we didn’t win. That’s the emotion.

“We should have two penalties, clear penalties.

“It was just stop-start, every time there was a challenge in the middle of the pitch the whistle blew. It wasn’t a good spectacle because of that, there wasn’t a flow to the game.

“There should have been a penalty in the first minute of the game, it was a clear penalty on Billy Waters and he ends up getting booked for it.

“Then we should have a penalty on Jack Senior down this end. It’s really disappointing when you see those.

“We’ve seen them back and they’re blatant penalties. Billy Waters has no need to go over there because he’s going to score.

“It is what it is. And we’ve really pleased with the response from conceding a real sloppy goal for us.

“We responded with real calmness. It was good composure for Joe Ironside to score the penalty.

“I wasn’t expecting to get it after the first two – that one’s probably less than a penalty than the other two.”

Sutton had seemingly given their survival hopes a huge boost with a first win in seven but Ironside’s last-gasp spot-kick gave them a bitter pill to swallow.

Boss Steve Morison said: “We were, I want to say unlucky, but we should have had a few more goals and we didn’t.

“We let ourselves down right at the death. It’s just frustrating.

“We need to make sure everyone keeps believing in that dressing room because the performances are a lot better than the results at the minute. But we need to keep performing because that will come eventually.

“It was a really good performance, 100 per cent. It’s not just this game where we’ve performed well, but all the games.

“We lacked that cutting edge in the final third. Some of our play was excellent, we got a really good goal. But I’m just gutted that it was decided at that time that a key moment was a penalty.

“No-one else saw it as a penalty, but the one who makes the decisions did.”