Stuart Kettlewell seethes at St Mirren red card escape for 'horrendous' tackle and insists no VAR excuse doesn't wash

Seething Stuart Kettlewell insists going VAR free was no excuse for Willie Collum missing two major calls in Paisley, including a "horrendous" tackle on Mika Beireth.

The Motherwell boss was gutted to be sent tumbling out of the Viaplay Cup by St Mirren. But it was the failure to award a first half penalty and dish out a red card to Charles Dunne that stuck in the throat. Both clubs agreed to ditch VAR for the second round clash but Kettlewell insisted the cameras should not have been needed.

He said: “I don’t want to sit here as a guy who continually makes excuses, but there are two decisions in the game. One is a stonewall penalty, Mikael Mandron hand-balls it and I’m always a huge believer in a player’s reaction – he knows it has come off the hand, that his hand is outstretched, which is everything that the video shows. But I’m more upset with the challenge in the second half from Charles Dunne on Mika Biereth, it’s an absolutely horrendous tackle, two-footed tackle and straight-legged.

“I’ve now got a striker sitting on the treatment bed down there. I was instructed that these types of tackle were outlawed in the game.

“I’m not throwing Willie under the bus, he’s one of our top officials, and rightfully so. But I asked the question about the penalty at half-time and he said ‘we have no VAR’. We don’t get the red card in the second half when it’s a horrendous tackle, it’s an absolute shocker, red card all day long – but the excuse is that they don’t have VAR.

“But I was on the understanding that if VAR shuts down, if we didn’t have VAR, then the referee referees the game, like we were told it was only going to be an aid to help referees get more correct decisions. But when you see these things appear on the pitch,