ECCLESHILL United boss Sean Regan does not want to use refereeing decisions as an excuse when things go against them.

His side were on the end of a harsh decision last Saturday which consigned them to a 2-1 home defeat to Shirebrook Town.

Left back Kyle Shar was shown a red card with ten minutes remaining and Town slotted home the winner from the spot.

But Regan told his players that the responsibility was on their shoulders.

He said: “I thought it was going to be a free-kick to us because Kyle was fouled by their striker outside the area.

“In the dressing room after the game, the lads were saying ‘the ref has killed us there’, and I told them that I didn’t agree with the decision but I didn’t agree with them either.

“The officials are going to make mistakes because we’re all human and we all do, but we are losing games we should be winning because we’re making more mistakes on the pitch than anyone.

“We had another bad decision a couple of weeks back when we were away. The home side broke and everyone in the ground agreed that their lad was offside when he scored.

“On that occasion the linesman apologised to us after the game.

"I thanked him for his honesty but asked him where that left us.

"The players said the same that day but again I told them that we should be working on our game and our decision-making and making sure that we’re putting these games to bed before the odd bad call from a ref or a 'liner' leads to a goal against us.”

Regan believes that his squad will find some consistency and will be challenging for promotion.

He added: “The potential of this group of players is frightening.

"We have seen it in some of the games but not all of them because we keep getting the odd shocker, but I’ve got every faith in the lads and they are working hard.”