NEWPORT County AFC manager Graham Coughlan has demanded an explanation from refereeing bosses after being denied a “clearly legitimate” equaliser in the League Two loss at Salford City.
The Ammies took the spoils 2-1 at Moor Lane to condemn the Exiles to back-to-back defeats.
All the goals came in the first half with a Matty Lund header and Declan Drysdale own goal sandwiching a crisp strike by Bryn Morris, his first in County colours.
However, the Exiles bossed the second half and felt they should have been level on the hour when Will Evans scrambled the ball into the net.
Celebrations were cut short by the offside flag and the forward was booked by referee Sebastian Stockbridge for his protests.
“We scored a second goal that was clearly legitimate. I don’t see what the issue is with it,” said Coughlan, who has frequently been frustrated by decisions so far this season.
“The referee and the linesman decide to tell us that it was offside when it wasn’t offside. I don’t know where they are coming from on that, it was a clear goal.
“We have looked at it back and can’t see where they are coming from so we are absolutely fuming – decisions like that don’t belong in the game and somebody needs to look at that and give us an explanation.
“There are no excuses, you can’t disallow that goal. These guys get protected but that needs to be explained because it’s not good enough.”
“That’s a really costly error,” he continued. “We have lost because of that, coupled with our bad defending.
“But these guys are protected by the hierarchy and you can’t do anything, you’ve just got to take your bitter pill.”
County took just two points from five fixtures in September and suffered back-to-back defeats for just the second time under Coughlan.
The first occasion was at Moor Lane last season and the boss pointed the finger of blame to sloppy defending as well as the officials.
“We were excellent but I am stood here again talking about two basic, stupid, silly errors that cost us the game,” said Coughlan.
“Our performance as a whole was excellent, we were really good, but we have to look at the mistakes for the two goals that we conceded.
“In my eyes that was a 2-2 draw because of the goal that was disallowed but I still would have been fuming because we were the better team and should have won that by a landslide.
“It was a really positive week with the takeover and the performance was really strong at a tough place to come, but I can’t get past the disallowed goal and the two errors for their goals.
“I will have another sleepless night thinking about the mistakes and that decision by the referee and linesman.”
County also suffered another blow when left-back Adam Lewis limped off in the first half with a muscular injury.
It will be assessed but the Liverpool loanee looks unlikely to be available to face Colchester at Rodney Parade on Tuesday.
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