St Mirren manager Jim Goodwin was left aggrieved that his side failed to notch their first cinch Premiership win of the season at Hibernian.
The Buddies led at half-time through an Eamonn Brophy strike but ended up needing a late equaliser from Joe Shaughnessy to salvage a 2-2 draw after a Paul McGinn equaliser and a Martin Boyle penalty within the space of four minutes swung the game in Hibs’ favour.
Goodwin felt his team played well enough to win and lamented the fact the Edinburgh side were able to seize the initiative through a spot-kick he is adamant should not have been awarded after referee Kevin Clancy judged that Matt Millar had grappled Ryan Porteous while defending a corner.
He said: “I’m not happy with a point. Before the game not many people would have given us a hope but on the balance of the game I’m quite frustrated to be sitting here just with a point. In the first half, the boys were excellent and we got the goal justifiably and deserved to go in ahead.
“We knew Hibs would change things because they couldn’t come out and play how they played in the first half and they were very, very good in the first 15 minutes of the second half. Their first goal was a decent goal but the big talking point for me was their penalty.
“I hate moaning all the time about decisions but I think that was an extremely soft penalty. There was a little bit of grappling before the ball came in but before Porteous went to ground, Matt Millar moved his arms out to his side to prove to the referee he wasn’t touching him.
“Porteous has a habit of winning cheap free-kicks over the years. Some people might say he was clever but for me the referee needs to see what was going on there and not give a penalty.
“There’s a real frustration because I think we could have won the game if that second goal hadn’t gone against us. I thought we had the Hibs fans on their team’s back for large periods of the game. I should probably be really pleased that the players gave everything right to the end and didn’t let the game get away from them because that 15-minute period when Hibs were on top, it could have gone 3-1, 4-1, but they didn’t allow that to happen.”
Hibs moved back ahead of Rangers at the top of the Premiership by virtue of goals scored, but manager Jack Ross was disappointed.
He said: “There’s a frustration at the way the game finished after we had got ourselves ahead but a large part of that frustration is down to the first-half performance because we didn’t play well.
“We weren’t at the levels we’ve been at in recent times. It’s a strange afternoon because we’ve remained undefeated and we’re back to the top of the table but there’s a lot of frustration with the outcome and bits of the performance.”
