Lee Clark's honest appraisal of a key Rotherham United incident at Lincoln City
NEW boss Lee Clark has come down on the side of the referee over the ‘no penalty’ controversy in his first match in the Rotherham United hot-seat.
With the drop-zone Millers trailing 1-0 during the first half at League One leaders Lincoln City on Saturday, Duncan Watmore tumbled in the home side's box as he tried to fashion a scoring opportunity.
The smacked the ground in anger when a spot-kick wasn't awarded, but, following a 3-0 loss for his side, Clark agreed with the decision of Surrey man in the middle Craig Hicks.
“At the time, yes, I thought it was a penalty,” the manager said. “From where I was standing in the technical area, we were claiming for it. However, when we've looked on the screen afterwards, I think the consensus on the bench was that it probably wasn't.
“It was a great bit of skill by Duncan - a good little bit of invention - to pop the ball over the defender's head, but I think the defender's teammate has come in and made not a bad challenge, really.”
Clark rued the spurned opportunity soon afterwards when skipper Joe Rafferty made it to the back post and looked certain to convert Reece James' cross for an equaliser only to fail to make proper contact and the ball to go wide.
“Our captain had a good chance,” he said. “We'd earmarked that as an area where we could get a goal. Joe maybe got caught a bit tight on the ball.”
Rotherham, in 22nd spot, are six points from safety and their minus-23 goal difference is worse than the teams above them.
Clark now has the best part of a fortnight to improve his new charges who are without a match this week because of the international break and return to action on Good Friday at home to Stevenage.
“We've got to dust ourselves down,” he said. “There's plenty of hard work coming up before Stevenage. I'm looking forward to getting my teeth into that and starting to work with the group on various aspects. This period of getting some work into them is going to be crucial.”