Exeter assistant Kevin Nicholson slammed the referee after his side’s controversial 0-0 draw at Lincoln in League One.
Nicholson was taking media duties after manager Gary Caldwell was sent off for his reaction after a potential stoppage-time winner from Ryan Trevitt was ruled out for an Angus MacDonald handball.
And Nicholson said: “It’s really frustrating because we had a gameplan and the players played it to perfection.
“There were some top individual performances and some top defending all to allow us for when our chance came, if it gets taken, we win that game.
“We’ve done everything, including scoring a perfectly good goal, which has been taken away apparently for handball. It’s very hard to explain.
“You’re not allowed to talk to (the officials) for a certain time after because they lock themselves away and have their chats.
“We’ll see what he comes back with. But in a 50-50 game, the inconsistency of the decisions and the frustration that builds puts the ref in a really difficult decision because of course there’s going to be emotion on the sidelines.
“From our point of view it’s really disappointing that something that we can’t control has taken away from what would have been a great three points.
“It’s frustrating. It’s something we can’t control. The ref’s had a bad game. You don’t want to come out and bash officials, but today I think we’re all in agreement that it was particularly poor.”
Although it was the Grecians who almost stole a late winner, Michael Skubala’s Imps had the better of the chances.
But they failed to unlock the door, with Tom Bayliss heading against the crossbar and Joe Whitworth making a great save to keep out Jovon Makama.
Skubala said: “I thought we were the better team. We did everything we could, but we didn’t have the quality in the final third.
“It was a good performance, but we just couldn’t get that goal. We had half chances, we had set pieces. If we get the first goal I think we would have scored two or three.
“We expected them to play a little, but like a lot of teams this season they’ve come here and stodged it up.
“We’ve got to have that bit of extra quality to score and then when you get that goal the game opens up.
“I was frustrated with the result, but I thought the performance was good once again.
“I’m not sure if it’s handball. There are lots of bodies in there and I’ve not watched it back. It might have been, it might have not.
“We totally dominated them second half and, for me, there was only one team who wanted to win it. I didn’t see another team who wanted to win it, I saw a team who didn’t want to lose.”
