Grimsby Town boss blast penalty decision ‘horrific’ after draw at Newport County

“Referees make mistakes, and that was definitely one of them.”

After a back-and-forth match with several contentious calls, David Artell believed that Grimsby Town’s draw with Newport County was a fair outcome.

Even though the game ended without any goals, there was still a lot of activity to remember, such as Newport’s penalty that Mariners goalie Jordan Wright saved but that still caused Artell to react strongly after the game.

Although Town’s winning streak on the road came to an end, they took care to avoid losing a match that could have easily gone either way with all three points. Among other simple stops, Wright’s penalty save helped Grimsby secure back-to-back clean sheets, which was the element of the outcome that their head coach was most pleased with.

Artell acknowledged that he believed both sides had a chance to win and lose. The game was competitive. On the one hand, I’m thrilled with the clean sheet and the fact that we’re still undefeated away from home.

“On the flip side, did we do enough to win it? Maybe, on another day. We had some great chances, but so did they. So, maybe a point is a fair result. On another day, we score our chances and win two or three nil, or they score theirs and do the same.

“The crucial thing is that if you can’t win the game, then don’t lose, and last year we probably would’ve lost that, so it’s pleasing that we didn’t. The back four have been good along with Jordan in the last few, so we’ve got to keep that going.”

Kieran Green picked up the fifth yellow card of the campaign, which will see him face another suspension for the next league outing at home to Colchester United. Still, his tackle on Kyle Hudlin, which brought about Newport’s penalty, looked to be clean.

That is at least how Artell saw it, and it was another one of those days where a few other contentious calls or no-calls could have swung the result one way or the other.

Artell declared, “The penalty decision was horrifying.” According to both benches, that is simply not a penalty. That was definitely an error on the part of the referee. It was an excellent and clean tackle.

The referee didn’t have his finest game, in my opinion. In the first half, Kamwa should have been sent off after almost breaking Ty [Warren]’s leg, and they could have gotten a penalty early on. Additionally, we scored an offside goal. Both my team and Newport’s players made poor choices, but the referee also made some.