Jefferies frustrated by penalty snub

19 April 2009 10:51
But the Rugby Park boss was still thrilled to come away from Tannadice with a point as his side bid to avoid being dragged any further into a relegation dogfight. The teams battled out a drab goalless draw but Jefferies had no complaints about the effort of his players and felt they were unlucky not to claim a decisive goal when Gavin Skelton appeared to be tripped in the box by Garry Kenneth. "I thought we were excellent in the first half and we were the driving force," he said. "We should have had a stonewall penalty. Gavin felt the boy pushed him just as he was about to pull the trigger, which made him push the ball away." When it was pointed out to Jefferies that no-one - including Skelton - appealed to referee William Collum after the incident, he replied: "I think they were dumbfounded that they didn't get it. "They were stunned. And, when you're stunned, there's not a lot you can do about it. "Craig [Levein] turned around and said that he would have been shouting for it as well but there's nothing we can do about it now." Killie were without last week's hat-trick hero Kevin Kyle, who suffered a hamstring injury in training earlier in the week. Jefferies kept the injury under wraps hoping the striker would prove his fitness in time but decided not to take a risk. And he was more than satisfied with the response from the rest of the players in Kyle's absence. He said: "If anyone thought we weren't up for a battle, well they have seen us last week and they have seen us today. It was an excellent performance. "We had to defend a lot more in the second half because we knew they would throw everything at us and to come away with a clean sheet was terrific." United boss Craig Levein was less than impressed by the performance from his own players but had no real complaints about sharing the spoils. "I said to the lads at half-time that I thought we had done fantastically well to still be in the game having only had five players playing for 45 minutes," he said. "We just didn't play. I can't fault the effort, there was loads of running about. It might be that this point becomes valuable six weeks down the line." However, Levein was unhappy with the decision to dismiss Paul Dixon late on for a last-man foul on Danny Invincibile. He said: "I thought it was harsh because the ball went over the top. "If it had been through the middle, whether it was accidental or not, and Danny had a chance of scoring, I would have had no arguments. "For me, and I don't think I'm doing Danny a disservice here, I don't think he would have scored from that position."

Source: Team_Talk