Crawley striker Izale McLeod has hit back at accusations he “conned” the referee into awarding the decisive penalty at Colchester on Saturday.

McLeod went down in the area after poking the ball past goalkeeper Sam Walker before stepping up to convert the spot kick which sealed a crucial 3-2 victory.

Walker was furious with the decision by James Adcock saying: “For me, it’s not a penalty. He has tackled me – left his knee in on me.

“We’ve certainly collided but players are very clever these days – they are very good at conning referees. And I think the referee today was conned.”

But McLeod was adamant that Adcock got the decision right and said that Walker was lucky to escape with only a yellow card.

McLeod said: “I beat the keeper to the ball and as I’ve gone to go around him he has caught me on the shin.

“I’m not sure what he caught me by letter of the law it’s a penalty. Some might have given a red but the ref said I was going away from goal so it was not an obvious goalscoring opportunity.”

Reds boss Dean Saunders thought the decision made up for the goal Crawley had disallowed earlier in the second half when Ryan Diclson was incorrectly flagged offside.

Saunders said: “It was a difficult one but it looked like a pen to me. You could tell by the way the collision happened but if not we had a perfect goal disallowed just before that.”