Charlie Lyon's red card looked harsh, until his manager explained sending off

Irish Daily Mirror

4 days ago

Cork City boss Ger Nash has described as 'unacceptable' the incident that resulted in his side going down to 10 men against Shelbourne on Friday night.
Skipper Charlie Lyons, whose mistake led to Shels' second-minute opener, saw red after he took out Scottish midfielder Kerr McInroy.
The feeling as the game went on was that referee Rob Harvey had acted harshly in sending off Lyons. However, Nash clarified afterwards that the challenge had initially been deemed a yellow card offence.
What was said afterwards to the official led to the card being upgraded to red.
Addressing the performance, which saw Cork concede twice inside the first six minutes, Nash didn't hold back.
He said: 'I am obviously hugely disappointed, it's a game that passed us by, that we had a chance to pick up points in. We're in a position where we can't do that, it's as simple as that.
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'It's a hugely disappointing night. The key moment in the game is how we started and how we gifted them the first opportunity, which they took.
'It's tough, you come to a place, they have a new manager (Joey O'Brien), they have Europe next week, they are right on top of it and we end up with a really dreadful start.
'In fairness to the lads in the rest of the half they responded and got ourselves back in the game, showed huge qualities in many respects.'
Nash then turned to the red card, which came at a time when Cork had halved the deficit and were looking at the start of the second-half to build on their goal, which came just before the break.
'At half time I thought we were in the game, that we have a real opportunity to go and take some points, we are looking good in that respect,' he said.
'But the key moment in the second half is unacceptable, simply unacceptable, and had a huge bearing on what we can do in the second-half in terms of trying to get ourselves some goals and points on the board. Really disappointing with the key moment.'
Nash was asked if it was the referee's decision that he found unacceptable, and he responded: 'Whatever decision the referee made, we're in a position where we have to be disciplined in how we speak to referees, that's part of football.
'I know the reasons why the referee sent him off, the tackle was deemed a yellow card offence, the upgrading of the situation was down to something one of my players said to him, and I won't accept it.'
Nash, appointed manager of the struggling Leesiders in mid-May, didn't hold back when criticising the goals his side conceded at Tolka Park.
'It's the softness of the first goal, it's not us, not what we are going to face, going to press in those moments, and it's really poor,' he said.
'How we give away the ball, in the build-up to their first goal, way beyond frustrating and it's unacceptable in terms of the message we give the players and then what goes and happens on the pitch, it's too important.
'This isn't kids football, this isn't the First Division, this is the Premier Division, it's unacceptable how we started the game.
'It's a huge shame as a lot of the players have left a out out there, playing with 10 men for a long time so it's hard to analyse this game.
'The softness of the first goal is huge and then the red card compounds that.'