OWEN COYLE was left fuming with referee Willie Collum after his first home game in charge of Ross County ended in a 2-1 defeat by Hearts.
The former Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers manager believed his side could have had "two or three stonewall" penalties and was particularly incensed at one incident in the opening half which Collum missed that led directly to Hearts' first goal, scored by Isma Goncalves in the 34th minute.
Coyle said: "There were probably five or six penalty appeals, two or three stonewall. The one in the first half, Christophe Berra wasn't even looking at the ball and he takes [Andrew] Davies out of the game – and it led to Hearts' goal.
"That's something we need to address because we had two against one and two boys collided into each other. Goncalves ends up scoring a good goal from his perspective, disappointing from ours.
Two minutes after Goncalves' strike, Davis Keillor-Dunn capped a flowing County attack to score the equaliser, a goal which gave Coyle particular delight even his day was to end in defeat.
"We picked ourselves up and replied from a great move down the right. Keillor-Dunn, I've said from day one, we can work with and make a better player. It was a wonderful equaliser and at that point we were well set to go on and win the game.
"For their second goal, we had an opportunity to clear and never – and that's the little bits we need to work on and get better at as a group."
Coyle's counterpart Craig Levein gave his Hearts side pass marks in more ways than one. They upped their game after the break and while they ended the game with 10 men after Connor Randall was sent off, Levein was satisfied with his players thanks to their better use of the ball and a clincher from Jamie Walker.
He said: "Every game away from home in the Premier League is difficult and I was pleased overall with how we played. We passed the ball very well in spells, although we are not on a roll yet. We have not yet got any major momentum behind us, but for long spells in the first half I felt we were doing the things I hope that we will do week in and week out.
"I said at half-time the way we were going to win the game was to pass the ball and if we wanted to we could do it. They gave me a pretty good answer.
"It was good to see the resilience from the team after we went down to 10 men. Players have to sacrifice themselves. Kyle Lafferty had to go wide on the right and he did a perfectly good job in that position. Jamie Walker had to become a defensive midfield player and he did that excellently, but I was thrilled to bits with them all."
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