When we went one down, thought, well that's that. How much impact did the tactical switch have from anyone at the game. Credit to the team for the win!!! They must be buzzing. Can we just do penalties for every game? Kettle is onto something there.

Have just seen the one Townsend saved in normal time, absolute joke of a minimal contact dive after Howkins put an arm out and leaned vaguely in the attacker's direction - looked to me like Kettle saw Howkins push the same player outside the box when competing for the ball just before and that, rather than the actual contact, made his mind up for the following decision.

A truly awful ref. Three great penalty saves from Townsend though.

I think the Sky clip shows the last save twice, it pretty much defines getting a strong hand on it. Townsend also gets very near to saving their first penalty in normal time. Really stupid of their player to haul ours over for the equaliser. I think it was Leadbitter?

There's a video on youtube that shows the full penalty shoutout. Search Gillingham MATCH DAY EXPERIENCE. Advance to 10:10 for the full penalty shootout.

I think that Kettle waited a few seconds to see if we scored before giving the penalty to us at the end of the game. If so, it was good piece of refereeing. He would have looked a right Charlie if he had blown for a penalty when the ball was already going in the net. Looked a clear penalty no matter what their manager says. Stupid action by their player.

SJG99 wrote:Have just seen the one Townsend saved in normal time, absolute joke of a minimal contact dive after Howkins put an arm out and leaned vaguely in the attacker's direction ......

I know exactly what you mean. I have yet to see a County player concede a penalty other than minimal contact, I have never seen a County player 'scoring' who was ever more than minimally offside. I have never seen an opposition player ever make minimal contact, with them the contact is always enough for it to be a clear penalty. And even when the goals are allowed I have never seen an opposition player score who wasn't yards offside.

We all know that the only reason Newport County have not been champions of Europe for the last 60 years is because every single referee and linesman just hates us.

I put it down to jealousy, I really do.

Edit.

Serious point. We are a League club. Hartlepool are not. For that I am grateful. (Us being in the league not Hartlepool not being, I quite like Hartlepool as it goes.)
Now go on YouTube and watch the penalty we got v Notts County. Remember that penalty award was ultimately responsible for us surviving and Hartlepool not.

Watch it with honesty. If you do I promise you, you will never again complain about a soft penalty.

Stan A. Einstein wrote:

SJG99 wrote:Have just seen the one Townsend saved in normal time, absolute joke of a minimal contact dive after Howkins put an arm out and leaned vaguely in the attacker's direction ......

I know exactly what you mean. I have yet to see a County player concede a penalty other than minimal contact, I have never seen a County player 'scoring' who was ever more than minimally offside. I have never seen an opposition player ever make minimal contact, with them the contact is always enough for it to be a clear penalty. And even when the goals are allowed I have never seen an opposition player score who wasn't yards offside.

We all know that the only reason Newport County have not been champions of Europe for the last 60 years is because every single referee and linesman just hates us.

I put it down to jealousy, I really do.

Edit.

Serious point. We are a League club. Hartlepool are not. For that I am grateful. (Us being in the league not Hartlepool not being, I quite like Hartlepool as it goes.)
Now go on YouTube and watch the penalty we got v Notts County. Remember that penalty award was ultimately responsible for us surviving and Hartlepool not.

Watch it with honesty. If you do I promise you, you will never again complain about a soft penalty.

To perfectly illustrate that, there is a YouTube video made by Gillingham fans (mentioned on another thread) that shows all of the goals and the penalty shoot out last night. The Gillingham fans berate Kettle for awarding the final (normal time) penalty. They are then shown after the game acknowledging that they were awarded 3 penalties in the game - and go on to bemoan the fact that referees are always biased against them!!!

Like Stan says, we are all the same!!!

Had to chuckle at the two lads doing the video clip saying "the ref made some awful decisions". Don't think they were referring to their team being awarded three penalties. Add to that the penalty we should have got shortly before Gillingham were awarded their third and the foul that should have seen their player booked for a second time 15 minutes before he eventually got sent off. Wonder what Steve Evans' comments will be.

excessbee wrote:Had to chuckle at the two lads doing the video clip saying "the ref made some awful decisions". Don't think they were referring to their team being awarded three penalties. Add to that the penalty we should have got shortly before Gillingham were awarded their third and the foul that should have seen their player booked for a second time 15 minutes before he eventually got sent off. Wonder what Steve Evans' comments will be.

The expected whenever we beat a team that thinks they're way ahead of us.

“We were dominant and the performance was good,” Gills boss Evans told KentOnline. “We had to deal with a bit of an aerial threat and that is how Flynn’s team play, they just launch it. Everyone in the ground apart from the Newport boys would dispute the equaliser at the end there because it was never a penalty. It was given for a tug by Mikael Ndjoli and there is no tug. I have looked at it on the video, slowed it down, there was no tug. That is Mr Kettle for you."

Aw, bless..... So the three penalties awarded to Gillingham were fine but the one against them was a bad call. Yeah right.

DT1892 wrote:

excessbee wrote:Had to chuckle at the two lads doing the video clip saying "the ref made some awful decisions". Don't think they were referring to their team being awarded three penalties. Add to that the penalty we should have got shortly before Gillingham were awarded their third and the foul that should have seen their player booked for a second time 15 minutes before he eventually got sent off. Wonder what Steve Evans' comments will be.

The expected whenever we beat a team that thinks they're way ahead of us.

“We were dominant and the performance was good,” Gills boss Evans told KentOnline. “We had to deal with a bit of an aerial threat and that is how Flynn’s team play, they just launch it. Everyone in the ground apart from the Newport boys would dispute the equaliser at the end there because it was never a penalty. It was given for a tug by Mikael Ndjoli and there is no tug. I have looked at it on the video, slowed it down, there was no tug. That is Mr Kettle for you."

From what I seen it was a blatent tug in the box for our penalty, and if evans say's he never seen it he needs to change his surname by deedpoll to wonder.

Having seen all four penalty decisions I thought the referee got them all right.

Perhaps the one Gillingham missed was a bit soft and I agree with George Guest that Kettle did well to let a couple of seconds go by to see what happened before he blew for the Newport penalty.

Kettle was certainly whistling a lot last night.

We always get the complaint that refs chicken out of penalty decisions well fair do;s the fella never did that last night.
We won.
Well done Mr Kettle