Crowd was 'too much' for referee, says Dagenham and Redbridge boss after being denied 'stonewall' penalty in Chesterfield defeat

With the game level at 1-1 with 15 minutes to go, the visitors appeared to have a good shout for a penalty when Myles Weston went down under a challenge from goalkeeper James Montgomery but referee Adam Herczeg waved away the appeals.

Not long after Daggers man Joseph Jones was shown a second yellow card for dragging back Joe Rowley.

And then with four minutes remaining Callum Reynolds was penalised for blocking Joel Taylor’s cross with his hand and Danny Rowe scored the resulting penalty to win the game, much to the delight of the 2,950 in attendance.

On Dagenham’s penalty appeal, McMahon said: “He (Weston) goes around the goalkeeper and he (Montgomery) brings him down.

“So that goes 2-1 to us if we score the penalty and if Joey Jones does not get sent off they (Chesterfield) might not have a penalty.

“I am never one to have a go at officials but I felt the crowd was too much for the referee.

“For me that was a stonewall penalty for us on Westy and that changed the momentum of the game.”

McMahon felt the referee made the right call in showing Jones a second yellow card.

He added: “It was a poor decision from Jonesy in possession of the ball to lose it and make a foul. I have got no complaints with the referee giving him a yellow card for that.

“I will have to look back at the (Chesterfield) penalty but I just felt today that every 50-50 decision went against us today.

“The two penalty decisions are key ones for us and I think the one on Westy he got it hugely wrong.”

Defeat for Dagenham ended their slim play-off hopes and McMahon said they ‘definitely’ deserved more from the game.

He explained: “I thought for the first 20 minutes Chesterfield, as we knew they would with the home crowd back in, started fast.

“I thought we grew into the game and after we scored Joey Jones hit the post and Liam (Gordon) got in some good crossing positions which we could not capitalise on.”