FRASER DUNCAN couldn’t contain his frustrations on Saturday as he raged at poor officiating throughout the day.

Sauchie were defeated 2-0 thanks to two set pieces but the game was full of poor decision-making by the man in the middle Iain Snedden.

Duncan told Advertiser Sport: “Poor [on Saturday] to be honest. I wouldn’t say we were poor, we just huffed and puffed a wee bit to be honest.

“But if you look at the game, we’ve not hit the standards we’ve been hitting in the last few weeks, we’ve huffed and puffed the whole game.

“Haven’t really put any passages of play together or any of the things that we work on but we’ve lost the game 2-0.”

Duncan continued: “I’m struggling to see where the two goals have came from; for me it’s two mistakes by the officials. Two mistakes from the referee and that’s it, simple as that. The standard of refereeing was absolutely shocking.

“Absolutely shocking to be honest, it’s not good enough. Poor decisions, giving fouls that aren’t fouls and then there’s two dangerous tackles that aren’t even blown up for fouls. Way, way off the game.

“He’s gave a free kick for the first goal and Jon Tully’s not even touched the man. He’s gave a penalty for the second one, it’s no a penalty. It’s disappointing, really hard to take.

“Then he’s came across to the dugout and he’s booked me for somebody else shouting. He lost control of the game – from five minutes in, he lost control of the game.

“He made a mistake before the game with the team sheet as well. It’s frustrating for me because it’s hard for my players.

“They’ve worked hard and they’ve battled, we’re struggling with injuries. The boys worked hard and it’s just frustrating.”

Sauchie had their chances, with the best falling to Jack Docherty and Aidan Cracknell.

Duncan continued: “Jack’s got to score. Aidan is a young boy who’s just learning his trade but he’s got to score.

"I think he’s got to take it around the goalkeeper and score. That would get us back in the game so we have huffed and puffed a wee bit but overall it feels like an end of season game.”

The gaffer then put down a marker to his players ahead of a big run of fixtures ending with April 30's Challenge Cup semi final against Auchinleck Talbot.

He said: “We need to get ourselves sorted because we’ve got big games coming up and I need players to go and stake a claim to be in that team because I’ll pick the best 11 for that semi final.”