THE actual football is sometimes secondary to the drama in the Scottish game, and Saturday at Rugby Park was one such occasion.
Not only was the battle for third place precisely that – an attritional scrap described by Kilmarnock manager Steve Clarke as ‘brutal’ – but the fallout after the home side had three men sent packing by referee Steven McLean was such that Scott McKenna’s goal which settled the match in favour of Aberdeen was almost a footnote to everything else that was going on.
Rugby Park boss Clarke may be among the favourites for the Scotland job, but it likely won’t be a job interview that will be the reason for his next visit to Hampden Park after he took a verbal machine gun to the referee, accusing him of displaying unconscious bias towards Kilmarnock because his dad Stuart was a legend of the club, saying he was incapable of controlling matches – his withering statement that a ‘good’ referee could have handled this difficult encounter was excoriating - and calling for him to be banned from refereeing matches involving the club.
It is of course, a ridiculous notion that will not be countenanced on the sixth floor of the national stadium, but McLean may again need the escort from stewards he required on Saturday just to get to his car the next time he is dispatched to Rugby Park.
He dismissed Kirk Broadfoot in the first half here, before Stuart Findlay and Rory MacKenzie followed him down the tunnel in the closing stages. Clarke said the club will be appealing the first and last of those, but it was hard to poke too many holes in McLean’s reasoning for dismissing any of the offenders.
Broadfoot had been dismissed after miscontrolling a ball in the Aberdeen box, lunging at the ball as Dons keeper Joe Lewis came out to collect. There may not have been intent from the defender, only he could tell you that, but he does come over the top of the ball and it isn’t hard to construe his challenge as endangering his opponent given his boot met Lewis’s chest.
Not even Clarke could argue with Findlay’s dismissal, coming for two bookable offences. In saying that, his first caution seemed a little harsh, the defender cautioned after getting into a tangle with Sam Cosgrove as they waited on the free-kick that ultimately led to Broadfoot’s sending off. How Cosgrove avoided a second yellow in that passage of play having just been cautioned for a foul on Gary Dicker is anyone’s guess.
The forward clattered into Findlay moments later in a challenge that would surely have earned a booking if he had a clean slate, before dodging punishment for his part in the melee with the same player moments later.
The least surprising substitution of the season was when he remained inside after the interval, but the inconsistent application of the laws had by now seared a burning sense of injustice into the bumper home crowd. Findlay's second yellow for a foul on Graeme Shinnie though was of the stonewall variety.
McKenzie’s red card was entirely in-keeping with the chaotic nature of events on the field in the dying stages, as Dom Ball stuck the head on the winger’s knee – no, really – and McKenzie responded by having a nibble back with his right foot as the Aberdeen man was on the deck.
Apparently with some help from the fourth official, McLean brandished another red towards a Killie jersey while failing to punish Ball, putting the tin lid on the afternoon for the exasperated home punters.
What was rather lost was that Scott McKenna’s second-half header - the Scotland man climbing well above Findlay to nod home Shinnie’s corner - had allowed Aberdeen to grind out the three points that now put some daylight between these sides.
It wasn’t pretty, but it was the perfect riposte to the disappointment of last weekend’s Scottish Cup semi-final defeat, a fact not lost on midfielder Stephen Gleeson, who made his first start here since September.
“Getting into Europe is massive for this club,” Gleeson said.
“People from the outside looking in might have felt our season was done after last week.
“But, we have a lot to fight for and we want to finish third at the very least.
“We want to show people our season wasn’t done last week.”
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