Gormley left fuming at red card

Friday evening in the Tallaght Stadium represented yet another defeat for Bray Wanderers but, for the most part, boss Eddie Gormley was directing his ire at match referee Richie Winter.

The Seagulls boss felt the 67th minute dismissal of midfielder Mark O'Brien for a tackle on Shamrock Rovers substitute Stephen Rice was the wrong call to make.

"I'm not disappointed with the players, I'm disappointed with the referee. It's never a sending-off in a million years," said Gormley after the game.

"That's the way the games gone here. Thank God I'm not playing anymore, otherwise I'd be up in the stand every week. It's a man's game, it should be played in a man's manner. The player has gone in 100% to win the ball, he hasn't gone anywhere near their player. I think you can see that.

"Their player [Rice] has got to his feet. There's an attempt there, his foot hasn't left the ground. He's gone in at the back of the ball, he's never touched the player. He's won the ball cleanly."

Aside from his frustration at the sending-off, the former St. Patrick's Athletic man was quite pleased with the overall performance (especially after O'Brien's dismissal), even though his side fell to their seventh defeat of the season.

"If you look at the way we played when we went down to ten men, some of the football we played, to be fair, we tried to get bodies forward without leaving ourselves open at the back," he said.

"The lads done well, we played some great stuff. At times it looked like we had the extra man. Brian Kane was outstanding for us again tonight and he's only a kid. It's his first year playing.

"They're the positives you take out of it, but it's a 1-0 defeat again. It's points gone when I felt, on the balance of play overnight, they didn't really create too many clear-cut chances. I thought we might have snuck a draw out of it, but we pick ourselves up and we move on."