Gwegwe blames refs for defeat
by Humphrey Njoku 03 February 2013, 12:09
Divine Warriors' coach, Ada Gwegwe has bemoaned his side 2-3 loss to hosts, Rising Stars in Saturday's NNL Matchday 7 at the Akure Township Stadium.
The defeat largely blamed on centre referee, Emmanuel Ogbennla from Oyo State left the Brass-based side stuck on eight points from 21 points though with a game at hand.
Gwegwe said his charges performed excellently well to have earned for themselves a point but for the referee's questionable calls.
"We played well to deserve if not an outright win at least a draw. The game was almost ending at 2-2 before the referee awarded the home side a dubious penalty which they converted.
"I'm not the type that complains but today's (Saturday's) officiating left much to be desired. The referee practically made it impossible for us to play our game with incessant calls.
"And it baffles me that nobody paid attention to our observation of having all the match officials coming from Oyo State in a match at Akure involving teams from Ondo and Bayelsa," said Gwegwe to supersport.com.
Gwegwe said he has taken a bitter lesson from the encounter and will make up for the loss when Bendel Insurance visit next weekend in a Week 8 encounter at the Samson Siasia Stadium, Yenagoa.
"The lesson I've taken from today's (Saturday's) game is to strive to be on top each time I'm in an away game believing that even if we have bad officiating we could always walk away with a point.
"We had few unused chances perhaps if the attackers had scored we may still have gone home with a vital point. We've learnt our lesson the bitter way but we'll go all out to reclaim the points against Bendel Insurance next week.
"Our policy is once we drop points we must do everything to reclaim the points. So Insurance won't escape defeat. It will be tough but we'll surely win," he said.
The match officials were Emmanuel Ogbennla, Kazeem Kareem and Joshua Oladebe, all from Oyo State.
