Ryan airs his take off
Friday, 22nd Dec 2017"To be fair he did not make any contact and I did not expect the referee to give the penalty.
Ryan Williamson was the centre of the controversy over the penalty that was given and then not given at St Mirren last Saturday. He strongly refuted the accusations of diving when he had the opportunity to give his explanation of what happened. It was midway through the second half when referee Craig Charleston pointed to the penalty spot. Ryan said:-
"The ball was played in and the defender came to shut me down. I went to get to the ball, I anticipated and expected him to make contact and I went to the ground. To be fair he did not make any contact and I did not expect the referee to give the penalty.
"As I got back up I just put my hands up. A couple of St Mirren players came over raging and accused me of diving. I said `listen, I did not dive. I did not intend to dive there.` That is not the type of player that I am, I would never try and cheat to pick up points.
"The St Mirren players obviously changed the referee`s mind. I never spoke to the referee but when I got up I have known straight away that I had made a mistake. I would still not class it as a dive, I did not intend to dive."
At the time Ryan gestured that he did not mean to dive and that is when his opponents led by Stephen McGinn lost the plot.
"I think that is why the referee changed it. I never said anything to the referee and I didn`t go up to the linesman to say change your decision."
A yellow card was shown to the Pars right back and his team mates have given him substantial amount of stick since last Saturday, he continued:-
"First it was for missing a good chance - they said that I cost us the game. It would have been my first goal and I was actually celebrating before I had shot! I got that excited, I had already wheeled away in celebration before putting the ball in the net."
His sixth minute chance shaved the left upright as it slipped behind and it wasn`t to be Ryan`s first senior goal. He continued:-
"With that and the penalty incident, they are winding me up but we are trying to forget about last week. All week we have looked forward to this weekend and all the boys in the dressing room are buzzing.
"The mood is upbeat, ready to go. We know ourselves that results have not been good enough recently. Last week our performance was better and unfortunate not to get something from the game.
"We have been working hard both on and off the field, to try put it right. We have had another good week training so we are raring to go for Saturday and hopefully we will get back to winning ways."
Ryan is looking forward to coming up against former team mates Finn Graham and Euan Spark but he is not expecting their Brechin side to be easy opponents:-
"No chance. We know Brechin have players who are capable of hurting us, we just need to focus on ourselves. It has been hard, I don`t think we have won in the league since we beat Livingston, it has not been an easy period especially after flying at the start of the season.
"We have prepared in the right manner but we know that no game in this league is easy. It is a really competitive league. Brechin have a system that suits them, they are a well organised side but we have got to use our strengths to try and break them down.
"As we have been saying for a while now it is a must win game for us to get ourselves back up there."
There have been seven league matches without a win since defeating Livingston on 21st October and Ryan knows that if the goal of promotion this season is to be achieved, the team must get back to its early season form:-
"We weren`t conceding many goals, we were scoring loads of goals and it was going exactly the way that we wanted it. The last seven or eight games it has not been how we wanted it. We have not got results, the performances have not been up to the standard that we set ourselves at the start of the season.
"There were plenty positives to take out of last week`s game despite the result. We are going out this week full of confidence and raring to go as I said."
The Pars players totally understand the fans frustration especially after such a poor run coming on top of a good start to the season:-
"We are really annoyed and so is the coaching staff. We have been working hard to try and make it right and a win this week would be a big boost. Once we get a win hopefully it is just a case of kicking on from there and getting ourselves back up to the top of the table."
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