The referee was the centre of attention as Gillingham lost at Grimsby but assistant boss Richard Dobson wanted to focus on his players’ performance first.
Match official Zac Kennard-Kettle sent off two Gillingham players and awarded a hotly-contested penalty, which led to Grimsby Town’s winning goal, and was handing out yellow cards for fun.
Report: Grimsby 1 Gillingham 0
Mild-mannered Gillingham no.2 Dobson picked up a booking himself, but after holding off the division’s leading scorers for so long, when everything seemed to go against them, he was just pleased with his players’ efforts as much as frustrated with the decisions against them.
“[The referee] is the wrong person to be talking about,” Dobson said afterwards.
“What we should be talking about is the amazing effort our boys put into that game.
“Their physical and mental qualities shone through.
“To be hanging on for a 1-0 win, if you're a Grimsby player against nine men, it's just testament to the effort and energy that our boys showed, the fighting spirit that they showed.
“I'm absolutely delighted with all the psychological qualities that they showed and the fitness levels. I thought they were absolutely outstanding.
“It's absolutely not the team that you want to go down to 10 men, or nine men against, because they use the ball so well.
“We were confident that 11 v 11 would be able to stifle them and stop them creating chances but to do it with 10 men and then to do it with nine men for as long as we did and to keep that scoreline as close as we did was just fantastic.
“It's just a shame that we couldn't get something on the end of them balls bobbling around in the box at the end because it would have been an unbelievable effort to come out of this game
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