I'm going to go out on a limb here and go for a bit of a different take on things in the Mussy vs. Westlakes game/refereeing.

Firstly the linesman is 15, yes he is little and looks 12 but he is actually 15. It is a bit ridiculous to place the loss on the performance of the referee. I'm not sitting here saying the referee had a good game, but I don't think the result can be placed on him. I think Westlakes played a decent game and knock the ball around well, but wouldn't by any stretch of imagination say definitely deserved to win the game.

If I look at our game against Jesmond, yes there was in my opinion an awful decision involving one of the goals and we barely won a 50-50 call all game. But that isn't why we lost, at the end of the day we were toothless in attack, not hungry enough and didn't deserve to win. We can talk all we want about the ref but Jesmond were the hungrier of the two teams and were good enough for the win, we weren't.

Throughout the week the gaffer spoke to our boys about the game and the lack of desire and players not willing to stand up and take control of a match and turn it on it's head, and we were much improved on Saturday. People can say that this foul or that foul should have been given, but at the end of the day I don't think Westlakes did quite enough to win. Most of the talk has been of Westlakes dominating the game and being hard done by, but in truth they were ineffective in the final third and majority of the would be fouls were in the middle of the park, not anywhere near threatening the Mussy goal.

If our first goal was offside, and from where I was at CB it did look to be, you could say that a draw may have been fair. But to say Westlakes deserves a win is a bit of a stretch. Muswellbrook were awarded a penalty at 0-0 which should have been put away, and it was a foul, not a bad foul, but a foul nonetheless. Also there were a couple of one-on-ones (one of which was at 0-0) which our striker should have slotted but was wasteful. We also had some really good patches of possession which haven't yet been mentioned.

Westlakes scored with their only clear cut chance and other than that, failed to trouble out defence too much. There is talk of Muswellbrook players going through the back, but I can't agree with that. We played a physical committed game but I thought Westlakes at times threw themselves about as well, and I'm not saying in a bad way. I thought it made for a really good competitive match.

It also hasn't been mentioned that Mussy lost their CB very early on to injury and needed to make two more changes due to injury as well, which can be difficult but we coped with it well.

At the end of the day, regardless of the ref, I just don't think Westlakes did quite enough for the win, in the same way we didn't do enough against Jesmond. I think that they were just missing a match winning touch in the final third, and in big Dunc (everyone knows who I'm talking about) they definitely have that. With him added to that team they will be a real force, but I think Mussy were good for their win on Saturday. Just a bit hungrier and dig in a little deeper.

Am aware there will probably be some vitriol sent my way, but this is my opinion and that's what these forums are for right?