IT WAS a day to forget for Sauchie Juniors as they endured a 4-0 defeat to Edinburgh University, having two men sent off in the process.
The Reds looked to carry on an unbeaten streak under new gaffer Jon Tully, hosting the bottom of the league student side.
They were hindered by losing an early goal inside five minutes, despite a few opening chances falling their way.
It didn’t take long for Edinburgh to double their lead, giving Sauchie a two-goal deficit inside the first half.
Assessing the start, Tully felt his side had done well but were unlucky to go into the break behind, having been refused a penalty to add to an unfortunate first half.
He said: “The first half, we went in 2-0 down at half time. We had a potential penalty claim that everybody in the park thought was a penalty except for the referee.
“We had the majority of possession, the goalkeeper only touched the ball in the first half to pick it out the back of the net twice.
“He’s not had a shot to save or a corner to collect so we went in at half-time, spoke to the players and said ‘keep doing what you’re doing but cut out the mistakes’ for the goals.
“Both goals were carbon copies of each other – the exact same thing happened twice. We looked like we were in control but we found ourselves 2-0 down.
“We created a couple of chances, they go up the park, goal. We create another few chances, they go up the park, goal.
“The exact same thing happened – they counter attacked and we didn’t get back quick enough to deal with it.
“It was really disappointing, we worked all week working on defending as a back four and going forward so the goals we lost were frustrating for us and everybody.”
Aiming to fight their way back into the match, Sauchie’s job was only made harder as two would be sent off in the second half.
Euan Griffiths and Brian Morgan were given marching orders after they received two yellow cards, both for dissent.
Tully lamented the quick booking decisions from the referee, which saw almost half his side penalised for backchat.
He continued: “A lot has been said about the refereeing standards this year from different clubs.
“We had around five or six players booked in the first half for dissent which was absolute madness.
“Big Scotty [Davidson], the captain, is the only one who’s allowed to speak to the referee, he shouts for an offside call and the referee pulls the foul back and books him.
“He was bamboozled and didn’t know why he was getting booked, asked the question and got told dissent.
“One asked what the foul was for, no swearing or anything and got booked for dissent as well.
“Big Euan gets sent off, his second yellow card, for asking what the foul was for. He’s not a nasty guy, he’s one of the nicest guys you’ll meet and he got sent off for dissent.
“Morgy got pulled back and booked for dissent as well.”
Edinburgh would add two more goals to their tally to win 4-0, with Tully feeling the booking decisions unsettled Sauchie, allowing the visitors to capitalise.
Tully added: “It’s absolutely crazy decisions from the referee and that got in our heads.
“We were concentrating on that rather than the game of football, we got more caught up by bad refereeing decisions, our heads were gone.
“We were concentrating on the wrong part of football.”
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