Ashy’s spot kick pain

“When you don’t take your chances these things come back and bite you. Alloa took a good quick corner and we never dealt with it in time.

Speaking after the 2-1 defeat to Alloa Athletic Lee Ashcroft was in no doubt that decisions to give and not give penalties definitely cost his team the game.

Lee was deemed at fault when he challenged Kevin O’Hara 17 minutes into the game. The man in charge Craig Napier, refereeing his first ever Championship match, awarded a penalty but that was not how the Pars central defender saw the incident:-

“I tried to speak to the referee but he never really gave me much time. I have watched it again. I won the ball cleanly and the boy actually stands on my foot.

It is not the first time that spot kicks have cost Dunfermline points with the two penalties awarded to Dundee in the opening match of the league season and one that caused a late defeat against Inverness Caley Thistle still hurting:-

“I don’t want to say too much but it has happened to us a couple of times this season. I know that it is a hard job but it is an absolutely ridiculous decision. I don’t know what he has seen to make him think that it was a penalty. The ball actually went in the opposite direction, I have clearly won the ball and the boy said to me, and half their players as well, that they did not think it was a penalty.

“There is nothing you can do once a referee makes up his mind. You just have to get on with it and respond. To be honest in the second half there were a couple of penalties that we should have had.”

Lee highlighted a handball by Jon Robertson inside Alloa box which went unpunished in the seventh minute of the second half:-

“In games previously this season handballs have gone against us. It hit the body and hit the arm. That happened to us in the Dundee game, it needs to be the same rules in every game in my opinion. If they are going to give a penalty one week, they need to give it the next week.”

Lee claimed that it was consistency in interpretation of the rules that was the most disturbing. Commenting on penalties given against Dunfermline, Lee continued:-

“There are not many penalties that we have given away that I think were genuine penalties.

“There could have been two or three hand balls given in the second half. They weren’t given and on another day they probably would have been given. It is frustrating, some weeks they are given, some weeks they are not.

“As a defender sometimes it hits your hand and there is nothing you can do about it. It is a hard job, mistakes are going to happen but when mistakes are as big as that it is going to cost us.”

Alloa ensured that their visitors left the Indodrill Stadium very frustrated. Kevin Nisbet had equalised by converting the first penalty given to Dunfermline in this season’s Championship but the diminutive Kevin Cawley was able to net the winner with a 72nd minute header. Lee commented:-

“We responded well after the penalty in the first half. We kept going, got the goal back and on another day we would probably have taken one of those half chances.

“It was an open game but we had the more clear cut chances they just wouldn’t drop for us.

“Alloa were clinical, they were smart and took a quick corner where we didn’t get back in time. The second one was a cheap goal to give away and they held on to get the result.”

Lee had chances of his own and even sent a header on to the crossbar, he added:-

“I had a few chances in the game, I maybe should have done better with the one in the first half. To be fair to big Andy Graham he did well to put me off.

“I also put a chance over the bar that I maybe could have done better with. That was the way of the game, we had a lot of chances but nothing fell clear.

“We had quite a few of them. When you don’t take your chances these things come back and bite you. Alloa took a good quick corner and we never dealt with it in time. We need to look back at that and figure out where we went wrong.”

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