Jack Ross speaks on Darren McGregor red card as Hibs boss makes appeal admission

Darren McGregor makes his way off the pitch after receiving a red card

The veteran defender was given his marching orders deep into second-half injury time in the Easter Road side’s 1-0 defeat by the Dons with referee Greg Aitken telling Ross after the match that the sending-off had been for aggression following an incident with David Bates in the Aberdeen penalty area.

McGregor, who was sent off in Croatia as Hibs crashed to a 4-1 loss to HNK Rijeka in the Europa Conference League in August, had already been booked for a foul in the first half and was shown a second yellow and subsequent red in the seventh minute of added time.

“I haven’t seen the second caution. The first one is a yellow card, I’ve no arguments about that,” the Hibs boss said afterwards.

"I haven’t seen the second one. I asked the referee and he told me it was for ‘adopting an aggressive attitude’.

"I don’t know what that means exactly because I haven’t seen it. I’m not sure how it works in terms of appealing it.

"At that stage of the game it didn’t affect anything because it was so late, but I’ve no idea what it was for.

"I haven’t spoken to Darren about it, either. I think he’s slightly frustrated about it and that maybe tells its own story.”

Hibs also had Martin Boyle and Joe Newell booked for fouls while Dons quartet Scott Brown, Jonny Hayes, Matty Longstaff, and Ross McCrorie found themselves in the official’s notebook as well.

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