7:16pm Saturday 21st November 2009
By Bruce Talbot
Crawley boss Steve Evans could not conceal his anger after a harshly awarded penalty condemned his understrength side to a 2-1 defeat at Hayes & Yeading in the Blue Square premier today.
With eight minutes remaining James Mulley went down under a challenge from Adam Quinn who appeared to win the ball cleanly.
But to the amazement of everyone including the home players, none of whom appealed, referee Gary Jerden pointed to the spot and Sean Canham sent Simon Rayner the wrong way.
Evans said: "There is no person in the ground who thought it was a penalty apart from the referee. I spoke to the assessor afterwards and he said he will review it but the damage has been done.
"When the incident is reviewed the referee will probably be marked down but will he worry about that on Sunday morning or when he goes for his Chinese tonight? Probably not."
Evans also slammed midfielder Barry Cogan who was shown a straight red for an awful challenge on Esmond James three minutes after the break.
He added: "It was a very rash challenge and Barry has been made aware of my feelings."
Reds, who were without Danny Forrest, Sam Rents and Charlie Ademeno, dominated until Canham headed Hayes ahead on 32 minutes after Simon Rayner failed to punch away a corner.
But Ben Smith levelled within two minutes, scoring only Crawley's fourth away goal of the season after his first shot was blocked.
Hayes dominated possession after Cogan's red but failed to seriously test Rayner until he was beaten by the penalty.
Even then Reds should have equalised with Adam Quinn, Mikey Malcolm and Simon Rusk all going desperately close.
Evans said: "We were fantastic in the first half - it was as good as we have played this season. It was a travesty of a result on the back of a penalty which was a shocking decision."
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