Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip says Western Sydney received plenty of help from the match officials in their 3-2 comeback win on Saturday night.
Melbourne Heart coach John van ‘t Schip says Western Sydney received plenty of help from the match officials in their 3-2 comeback win on Saturday night.
The Wanderers were awarded a soft penalty which Shinji Ono missed with the scores level at 1-1 in an entertaining contest at AAMI Park, while Brendon Santalab was not penalised for what appeared to be a blatant push on centre-back Robbie Wielaert in the build-up to the visitors’ second goal.
Youssouf Hersi struck the winner in the 86th minute to consign Heart to last place in the regular season standings.
And van ‘t Schip did not hold back in offering a scathing assessment of referee Jarrad Gillett’s performance.
‘It was a clear push,’ he said when asked about Santalab’s equalising goal to make it 2-2.
‘That’s why Robbie Wielaert was on the ground. But that was not the only one. It looked like the game had to be won by Western Sydney.
‘Not taking anything away from them because they’re a great team, they’ve done really well in the last two years and I wish them all the luck in the finals.But the game went clearly their way with a little bit of help from the other side.
‘Today I think there were maybe other aspects that played a role. One of them was the referee. We can’t do much about that. During the week we don’t train on that, getting those decisions against us.
‘Playing against 12, that’s always difficult.’
Van ‘t Schip did pay tribute to the efforts of his players, including retiring skipper Harry Kewell, who was unable to prevent his team from collecting the wooden spoon.
‘I have to give the boys a big compliment, the way they played,’ he said.
‘Our captain, I have to give him a big compliment, the way he finished his career. I think he played a fantastic game. That’s what we should talk about.’