Stephen Robinson makes 'thought it hit Rangers hand' admission over St Mirren penalty concession

St Mirren manager Stephen Robinson conceded that referee Nick Walsh and his VAR team were “100 per cent” correct to reduce his team to 10-men courtesy of the red card shown to Ryan Strain.

St Mirren's Ryan Strain handles the ball and concedes a penalty to Rangers. (Photo by Craig Foy / SNS Group)

The Australian was handed the ultimate sanction in 28 minutes after Steven Kirkland, in charge of the technology, alerted Walsh to the players having flicked out his arm to divert a cross away from the reach of the lurking Abdallah Sima inside the six-yard box. It resulted in a double-whammy from which his team could not recover admitted the St Mirren manager, as they were left a man down as faced with attempting to claw back a 1-0 deficit from the resultant penalty converted by James Tavernier.

“The red card changes the whole game,” said Robinson. “It’s 100 per cent the right decision. If you go 1-0 down with 11 men we’re still right in the game. We’re playing really well. But the red card changes it completely. We tried to stay in the game for 65 minutes. That was our plan. We came out and made three forward changes to try to give us some momentum. But it didn’t do that as right away we lost a goal [in 71 minutes]. That comes from our decision-making. So ultimately today we’ve been punished for our decisions without the ball.

“People have to make decisions in the game. It’s just a reaction from him [Strain]. It’s a poor decision – we know that – and the referee gets it 100 per cent correct. I was miles away and thought at first it had hit a Rangers hand but obviously it didn’t. But it’s definitely a sending off.”