Steven Naismith calls for refereeing consistency after penalty frustrations

Hearts manager Steven Naismith felt his team were denied two penalties in their victory over Motherwell and called for greater refereeing consistency.

Naismith believed Liam Boyce and Lawrence Shankland – who netted both his team’s goals in the 2-1 win – were fouled in the box, one in either half.

And he pointed towards other decisions both in this match and in Hearts’ recent league defeat against Rangers and questioned the lack of consistency.

He said: “Liam Boyce should have got a penalty. And if the referee says there’s not enough contact, he can’t give a foul in the middle of the park 20 minutes later for one that’s got less contact. It doesn’t make sense to me.

“Then the second one, at Ibrox we get blocked and the penalty (for Rangers) still stands.

“This time they’re saying there’s a block and blocks now count. It’s the inconsistency that’s ruining it. You just hope at some point it changes.”

Naismith praised both his strikers for their role in the victory.

He added: “I think Lawrence was really good. Liam Boyce was good as well and deserves a mention.

“We defended well and the midfield three were good.

“Lawrence gets the headlines because he scored the goals but I’m sure he’d be the first to say he needs his team-mates to create the chances and defend well.”

Motherwell got a goal back through Blair Spittal’s late penalty but it was not enough to prevent them slipping to a ninth consecutive game without a victory.

Manager Stuart Kettlewell was left frustrated at his side’s poor defending.

He said: “I’m going to sound like a broken record again. We conceded another goal from a corner after conceding two on Tuesday night.

“We had done our due diligence on Hearts but we didn’t do our job, it’s as simple as that. You get big moments in games where you have to stick to your task defensively and we’ve come up short on that first goal.

“Then it starts to breed negativity and a nervous energy among Fir Park. That’s understandable.

“At the second goal we’ve taken a backwards or sidewards step so when Shankland gets into that position we all know that 99 per cent of the time he’s going to finish as he’s been so good at it.

“That’s an incredible frustration for me. It really does annoy me.”