Derry City manager Tiernan Lynch believes that referee Paul McLoughlin got it wrong in sending off Danny Mullen in his side's scoreless draw against Shamrock Rovers at Tallaght.
Both Mullen and Shamrock Rovers goalkeeper Ed McGinty saw red in a game that never really sparked into life.
Rovers will have few complaints about McGinty's dismissal. The goalkeeper was shown a straight red for for handling outside the area in the 24th minute.
At that stage Derry looked poised to turn the screw on Rovers but the one-man advantage lasted less that 20 minutes as Mullen was shown a second yellow card before half-time.
Mullen, already booked by McLoughlin, picked a second yellow for a challenge on Aaron Greene in midfield as the hosts looked to break. Mullen did not appear to make serious contact with Greene but the referee viewed it as a cynical foul and produced a second yellow.
Speaking afterwards, Lynch said that his initial feeling was that the ref had got it wrong and that subsequent viewings of the incident cemented that opinion.
"I personally didn't think it was a sending off at the time," he told RTÉ Sport. "I turned away, I just thought it was a free-kick. Now that I've seen it back, I'm even more convinced that it's not a sending off.
"[Mullen] knows he's on a yellow card. He goes back, he can see Greene and he clearly put his hands up. I'm not gonna stand here and batter a referee, I know how difficult it is, but I felt they got it wrong.
"We've got to take it in the chin and we got to move on."
Those two first-half red cards took much of the energy out of the game and as the second half progressed, it appeared that both sides were happy enough to settle for a point.
The result leaves both Rovers and Derry in the bottom half of the table on eight points apiece and while Lynch admits that a point was probably deserved, he's still waiting for his side to really get going this campaign.
"At 10 v 10 in the end? Yeah, we're probably happy to take away a point," he said. "If we had our captain, 11 men on the pitch, then no I probably would have been a been a lot more disappointed if that had been the case.
"The players are more disappointed than anything. We're working unbelievably hard in training and we're, we're getting into those positions we just haven't quite found our shooting boots yet.
"But as I keep telling them, there's far too many good players in there, that somewhere along the line that that has to turn."
