Ref A-League rumps fires up aggrieved Mariners

Central Coast's controversial mid-week A-League Men's loss has fuelled the fire for Saturday night's clash against Adelaide United, coach Nick Montgomery says.

Central Coast Mariners coach Nick Montgomery says an "unjust" ending to his A-League Men club's last outing has fuelled their fire for an away clash against Adelaide United.

Central Coast Mariners - Adelaide United

Central Coast Mariners will meet Adelaide United this Saturday in the A-League.
The game follows controversial refereeing decisions in their mid-week loss for the Mariners.
Football Australia has since denounced the decisions of the referee in question.

More A-League news can be found on FTBL.

The Mariners travel to meet Adelaide on Saturday night after being controversial 3-2 losers to Melbourne City on Tuesday night.

Montgomery's side was on the end of two refeering blunders against City.

The rulings by referee Shaun Evans have since been deemed as wrong by Football Australia's referee department.

"Mentally it was a tough night for everybody but the boys are resilient," Montgomery said on Friday.

"Some things are totally out of your control, like they were on Tuesday night.

"So if anything, it gives us motivation to go to Adelaide and come back with a positive result."

Montgomery fumed post-match at a first-half penalty against his defender Kye Rowles, who fouled City's Marco Tilio outside the box but was ruled to have done so in the area.

And in the 87th minute, City's Mathew Leckie stepped on Lewis Miller's foot in the box but the Mariners were denied a penalty.

Both decisions came after lengthy video assistant referee reviews and consigned the Mariners to consecutive defeats after a 1-0 loss to Melbourne Victory last Saturday.

"The boys are in good spirits (but) obviously extremely disappointed from the last two games," Montgomery said.

"But I think everyone can see the boys put in two great performances and were very unfortunate against Melbourne Victory.

"And words can't really explain what happened against Melbourne City but I think everyone else can see what happened and it was totally unjust.

"Unfortunately we can't change what happened.

"We can only hope that the situation improves for everybody and for the good of the game because what happened the other night was an embarrassment really for football.

"And for us to be on the end of that was very unfortunate.

"But we can't feel sorry for ourselves, we get up and we're looking forward to the game against Adelaide."

Miller left the field against City with a foot injury after the Leckie incident and hasn't trained fully since.

"Lewis partially joined in (training) today, obviously he got a bad knock on the top of his foot," Montgomery said.

"Fortunately it wasn't anything serious so the medical staff have done a fantastic job getting him ready. So fingers-crossed he pulls up okay from today and is available for selection."