Lennon targets referee as Hibs fail to break the deadlock

At least Grant Holt can find some gallows humour in Hibernian’s recent brushes with officialdom.

For the third time in four Ladbrokes Championship fixtures, the Easter Road side were reduced to 10 men when Marvin Bartley was contentiously dismissed for a retaliatory swipe at Bobby Barr.

Of those three red cards, two have now gone to Bartley, with his ordering off against Ayr United subsequently rescinded. An outcome the Hibs hierarchy fully expect to see repeated this time.

“Marv [Bartley] just said there ‘I might as well go and put in proper tackles because every time I breathe on someone I get red-carded! I might as well go and do it properly’,” smiled Holt.

For fear of prejudicing Bartley’s next outing: that was almost certainly a joke. Probably. Nevertheless, it does encapsulate the frustration in the Hibs dressing room at the moment.

Saturday’s stalemate sent them to the summit of the table by virtue of Queen of the South’s capitulation against Morton and, while Holt did note that fact, his mood was far from celebratory.

Hibs remain without a win in five matches and there is an overriding feeling that they are not getting the rub of the green.

Neil Lennon, the head coach, questioned the “competence” of Scottish referees during a fiery post-match press conference in Fife and Holt had plenty of grievances of his own, which went beyond Bartley’s dismissal.

Having made a career out of his no-nonsense, imposing style, the veteran marksman insists he has no problem with the rough-and-tumble of the Scottish Championship.

However, Holt is adamant that went too far when he claimed to be hauled to the ground by Davidson on two occasions as Rovers desperately defended against James Keatings set-pieces.

The frustration was exacerbated when M’Voto appeared to handle the ball in the box in the second half - only for a free-kick to be given against Holt.

“I’ve got a linesman kept telling me he couldn’t see me getting pulled over in the box – that’s his job to get an angle to see what’s going on!” said the Norwich City legend. “Twice he’s managed to miss that.

“There’s a handball, I glance it on from a long throw hits the lad’s [M’Voto] hand and he gives a foul against me.

“I probably get away with things at times and I’m not going to go on about getting knocked over, the grappling, the headlocks. I can handle myself.

“But if you go into the box and someone has got two arms around you and the linesman, who only has one job on the pitch, tells you he can’t see it ... that’s another thing. The ref says ‘no holding’ and then that happens, I don’t get it.”

Prior to the contest exploding into a series of controversies, Raith Rovers started brightly with Jordan Thompson stinging the palms of Ofir Marciano from distance and Barr firing narrowly over the top.

Hibs, however, came closest to opening the scoring in the first period when Holt manufactured a yard of space in the box, only to see his goal-bound effort blocked by M’Voto. From the resulting Keatings corner Paul Hanlon rattled the cross-bar.

A fairly watchable contest was derailed on the cusp of half-time when Bartley was given his marching orders by Finnie.

As Hibs players and staff seethe, it should be noted the Raith Rovers camp are adamant the referee had no choice but to dismiss Bartley, an opinion voiced by the man who was “booted”.

“The boy [Bartley] has just kicked me. I’ve not done anything and the referee was looking straight at it,” said Raith Rovers winger Barr. “I went for a tackle, the ball broke away and Bartley has just booted me. I didn’t make a meal of it and you can’t argue with the ref that it was a red card.”

Aside from providing an unsightly stramash prior to the break, Bartley’s dismissal also robbed the match of the decent ebb and flow it possessed in the first-half. It was hardly silky, but certainly watchable.

By contrast, the second period was attritional and spiky. There was plenty of endeavour and aggression, but little in the way of goal-mouth action, barring Hibs’ trio of vociferous penalty claims.

Holt, however, saw enough from the 90 minutes to strengthen his conviction that Hibs will soon end their winless streak, and do so in scintillating style.

“We wanted three points but, even with 10 men, we dominated the whole game,” added Holt. “What everyone saw on Saturday was the grittier side of Hibs. People keep talking about the boys being ‘soft’, but we are not soft – we just didn’t finish them off. Someone is going to take a real hammering off us – and I’ll feel sorry for the team that gets it.”

RAITH ROVERS: Cuthbert, McHattie, M’Voto, Benedictus, Davidson, Matthews, Thompson (Johnston 88), Callachan, Barr; Skacel (Vaughan 65); McManus (Stewart 72). Subs not used: Brennan, Coustrain, Roberts.

HIBERNIAN: Marciano, Stevenson, Hanlon, McGregor, Gray, Bartley, McGinn, Fyvie, Keatings (Graham 83); Holt (Boyle 83), Cummings. Subs not used: Laidlaw, Shinnie, Forster, Eardley, Harris.

Att: 3753

Ref: Stephen Finnie