Mensing: I still don’t know why my goal was chalked off!

Feb 19 2009 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

SIMON MENSING was left bemused after blunder ref Dougie McDonald chalked off what looked to be a perfectly good opener against Motherwell for alleged hand-ball.

TV pictures appear to back up the midfielder, who was left scratching his head when his spectacular scissors-kick goal was ruled out.

Referee McDonald was fast with the whistle but Mensing genuinely doesn’t know why.

He said: “I think I scored a good goal and I don’t understand it whatsoever.

“The referee said to me that I had hand-balled it but I think he’s the only one to see that.

“Their goalkeeper has flapped at it and pushed it into the air and I’ve hooked it in. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good, legitimate goal but the ref saw differently somehow.

“I’m bemused and don’t know where the ref has got that from. I asked him what the foul was because I thought it must be something else but he said I was the culprit who handled the ball. There were Motherwell players who said it was harsh, which says a lot, so that was disappointing.

“I thought we deserved more from the game, especially after our first-half performance, and it was a sucker-punch to go in 1-0 down, to say the least.”

Although raging that his goal didn’t stand, Mensing said his side need to make more of their chances when they’re on top.

He said: “We should have taken a couple of our chances and obviously we paid for that. In the second half, we fell away a bit, and it’s fair to say that Motherwell were the better team, but when we’re on top in games we’ve got to take our chances and we didn’t do that in the first half.”

However, Mensing said the result won’t get Hamilton down as they prepare for Saturday’s trip to Falkirk.

He said: “We’ve been on a good run and although it was a bad result on Saturday it was just a ‘bad day at the office’ for us. We’ve got a good bunch of boys. They’re a strong bunch of characters and gaffer Billy Reid is certainly not going to let us get our heads down.

“We’ve got an important game on Saturday and we’ll certainly be up for that.

“We’ve got to start picking up points away from home and although we’re under no illusions that it’s going to be a hard game, it’s one we’re capable of getting something out of.”