WHEN the referee becomes a major talking point after a game of football it is generally accepted that all is not well.

Which is why the name of Steven Nicholls will still be discussed not only in the committee room of Glebe Park for the foreseeable future, but in the Michael O'Neill household as the Brechin manager comes to terms with having two of his players ordered off in a highly competitive, if not overly physical, encounter.

Tomorrow night, Stirling travel to Cowdenbeath with the aim of establishing themselves as front runners for a play-off place in the battle for promotion alongside Morton who, despite their defeat at Stranraer, are on course to win the second division.

Mark McNally, a competent and capable central defender for Stirling talked yesterday of "hanging in and seeing what happened" with reference to the title - even though he and Allan Moore, the team manager, accept that Morton are all but bomb-proof at the top of the table.

"We'll try," said McNally. "We'll give it a go. We still have Morton to play. There are teams either fighting for a place in the play-offs or fighting to avoid relegation, so every game from here on in is crucial and in the second division things turn very quickly.

"We have put ourselves in a good position. Our aim at the start of the season was for the play-offs and after the win at Brechin, barring a disaster, we will be there. There is also a very slim hope that we might catch Morton."

The home side, however, already behind to a Steven Bell goal, were down to 10 men after little more than half an hour when Darren Smith was shown a red card for a trip from behind on David O'Brien.

The Brechin management team were unimpressed by the referee's lack of leniency on the issue. They were right to adopt such a stance, though their loss of substitute, Chris Hughes, four minutes from the end for his last-man challenge on Chris Aitken, could not be contested.

Aitken's subsequent penalty-kick conversion made it 3-1 to the visitors, as Stuart Devine had scored just before half-time while Iain Russell fired home his 17th goal of the season for the home side who, despite their lack of personnel, put an inordinate amount of pressure on the opposing defence.

Sean Boycroft's late goal for the visitors ensured the game ended with a scoreline which flattered the victors. Just like Nicholls' overall handling of proceedings, during which he also flashed a raft of yellow cards, it left O'Neill fuming.

"Players at this level deserve better," said the Brechin manager. "They work hard all week. They are disciplined, come to training on cold nights and they then come out on a Saturday and get that level of officiating which was embarrassing and spoiled a good game of football.

"I thought Darren Smith's tackle deserved a booking but it was not a straight red card. There just didn't seem to be any consistency in the referee's performance. The referee will say he did his best but on this occasion his best wasn't good enough."