We spoke to Paul Holleran this afternoon to get his thoughts on yesterday evening's 1-0 defeat at Boston....
‘I thought it was a good game played in a good spirit. I think they (Boston) are a good side. We started the game really brightly in the first twenty minutes. The second twenty minutes belonged to them. I was hoping we would come out in the second half on the front foot but we didn’t. To be fair they pinned us back. I thought the penalty was really harsh, it looked to me as though the lad threw himself to the floor.
‘We’re four games into the season now and in three of them we’ve come out on the wrong end of decisions. At Kidderminster we came out the wrong end, on Saturday against Curzon Ashton we came out on the wrong end of a big decision, and last night we came out on the wrong end of a couple of big decisions that could have been looked at differently.
‘I think the fact that we’ve played with ten men for so long on Saturday affected the second half last night, I know that for a fact. We’ve had four games in ten days and we’ve had to play two games against possession based teams with ten men and it’s killed us a bit really, we were a bit flat second half. We certainly tried and worked hard but it affects your legs and if you’re a team that likes to see a pressing based game then it’s hard to do it, so that was a problem.
‘As for what happened at the end - as I said, it was a decent game, Boston thoroughly deserved the win. They’ve got good attacking players who caused us a problem for most of the evening - but it seemed something over nothing, it seemed to blow up over nothing, I didn’t see it coming. There was a bit of a melee and the Referee has then called in his Assistant from 60/70 yards away to help him make decisions. I think that something definitely went on between Jordan Murphy and (Jay) Rollins, there was definitely something there but nothing major. What I did see, as I was trying to keep my eye on Junior because he was in the middle of it, I could see Junior trying to get out of there. I think if I can talk about the major decisions at Kidderminster, on Saturday against Curzon, and last night - we’ve come out on the wrong side of all of them. We’ve ended up with players sent off (Curzon and Kiddy), we’ve ended up with a penalty last night and Junior and Jordan being sent off. They’re guessing too much. The Kidderminster referee, the Chairman and myself looked at the video many, many times, as you have to when you’re deciding whether to make an appeal over a red card, and when you’re stopping and starting it we had a great view, and to be honest it was pretty obvious the Referee’s view was blocked by Callum Gittings and Milan (Butterfield) so he couldn’t see the incident, so how does he come to the conclusion that it is a red card? He didn’t discuss it with his assistants so he’s guessing. The same thing happened on Saturday with Junior’s first yellow card - he’s guessing - and last night - he’s guessing. What’s happened at the start of this season, all over Non League football, there’s a mass of red cards, yellow cards and penalties. The officials have all had their re-education programmes, they’re all called in like we are for seminars, and at the moment it’s causing chaos. It just needs somebody to settle it all down, because last night you’ve got a game that was played in a good spirit and there’s been four players sent off and a penalty given.
‘As a manager you’re disappointed when you see that going on. I’m certainly not clearing the players of blame. It’s a bit disappointing when you see a melee like that. There wasn’t a lot in it but it was disappointing - we don’t want that. The point I’m making is that the three or four big decisions already this season that have gone against us and cost us - if you analyse them, there’s no clarity there. He guessed at the red card at Kiddy and got it wrong, he’s guessed at Junior’s first caution on Saturday and got it wrong - the video evidence backs that up. The penalty (at Boston) - I will be proved right again - he’s guessed at that because there’s no way you can give a penalty for that. And my gut feeling with Junior - I’m not sure it will show it on the highlights but I think Junior was trying to get out of the melee, and I think he’s been hard done by again, so we're four games in, and four big decisions have gone against us, but listen, we always know that the first five games are going to be difficult in this league. I’m disappointed with the red cards but the performances have been fine, we’ve picked up some points, we’ve had a great result against Brackley, we’ve had to dig in with ten men twice. There wasn’t too much wrong with us last night. The fixtures have definitely had an effect - with them not having a game last Saturday I think second half that was probably one of the reasons they had more legs than us, but we’ll rest up and have another go Saturday, because we’ve got another big game on Saturday (at York City). We’re well aware that this was coming though - you have to accept in this division that you’re going to come up against good sides and get beaten now and again, that’s the way it works. We’ve got York to come, we’re looking forward to that, and then we’ve got the Bank Holiday weekend and a couple of home games to get our teeth into. So we’re disappointed, but we’re pleased with a lot of things too. Spirits are high, we’ll regroup and go again on Saturday.’
