Michael Weir: Hibs bearing brunt of shocking ref decisions

Hibs were excellent at McDiarmid Park on Friday and very unfortunate not to win, considering they played with ten men for most of the game.

St Johnstone's Blair Alston escaped with a yellow card for his foul on John McGinn

Even a man down, they still carried a threat on the break and defended superbly. The players have to take great credit for staying ahead for so long, and even after that for holding on for a point at a time when St Johnstone had their tails up and were sensing a winner.

It was a bad decision by Ofir Marciano that left us up against it, but once he decided to leave his goal, he had to commit to going all the way. The ref had no option but to send him off. The unfortunate thing for Hibs is that the same ref missed an equally blatant red card when St Johnstone’s Blair Alston wiped out John McGinn. I think the player himself would have been surprised that he wasn’t sent off. The ref was right next to the incident so I don’t understand how he didn’t deem it worthy of a red card. He literally booted him. If that’s not a sending-off, I don’t know what is. It was just ridiculous.

It was probably a blessing in disguise that Neil Lennon was in the stand because it would have been understandable if he’d blown his top at the officials had he been in the technical area. I have real sympathy for the manager with regard to some of the decisions going against us at present and I completely understand why he’s getting so frustrated.

If we had kept 11 players on the pitch or if it had ended ten-a-side, as it should have done, I’m certain we would have won the game.

The Rangers result went for us and the Aberdeen game went against us but it will be like that until the end of the season. We’ve just got to try and make sure we get more positive results than our rivals in that time. It would help if the big decisions – which seem to be going against us a bit too often for my liking – started going in our favour.

On another note, I really hope Dylan McGeouch is fit enough to make his Scotland debut this week. After an injury-free season, it would be terrible luck if he was robbed of his big chance by a fitness issue.