Midfielder Alan Judge was left angry by what he felt was probably one of the worst decisions he’d ever seen after Sunderland were awarded the 84th-minute penalty which saw them to victory over the Blues at the Stadium of Light last night.
Central defender Mark McGuinness kicked the ball against his own arm as he looked to clear and referee Peter Wright, who had already controversially sent off Town midfielder Andre Dozzell, pointed to the spot.
Ex-Blues captain Grant Leadbitter, who had been involved in the Dozzell incident, netted the penalty.
Asked how he was feeling after the game, Judge, who had watched the incident back on video, said: "Angry. I don’t know if you’ve seen the penalty back but it’s probably one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen.
"Mark’s not even looking at it and it’s just one of those where it’s hit him. I was pretty sure the rule got changed after handballs were given quite early [in the season]. In my eyes that’s not a penno and a lot of the Sunderland players said that themselves.”
Regarding the red card, he added: "I was a lot closer to it. I think Dozzer was pushed, I don’t think it’s a red card. I can see maybe why he gave it, but I don’t think it was a red card.
"I think there was a foul initially on Dozzer and the momentum’s took him through. He’s won the ball, maybe his foot slid over the top of the ball but he hasn’t gone in there with any malice whatsoever.
"It’s funny though, they got away with clipping Gwion [Edwards] and Teddy [Bishop] about 20 times in the game and not one yellow card until the last five minutes for Leadbitter.”
Last night was hardly the first time that big calls have gone against the Blues over the last two seasons and Judge admitted it’s frustrating.
"I think some people would say the refereeing’s getting out of hand at the minute, some of the decisions,” he said.
"The Lincoln penno, fair enough, I wasn’t there at the game, but that penno decision tonight was unacceptable.”
Prior to the red card and penalty the Blues looked the more likely winners: "After playing against Crewe, a team who are built the way they played for the last however many years, we weren’t at our best but managed to win.
"We’re trying something different this year at the moment and I thought we played really well after the first five or six minutes.
"I thought it would have been the perfect away performance and if someone was going to win it would be us.
"I thought we had the better chances, Jack Lankester was unlucky not to score, I thought maybe we should have had a penalty [when Lankester looked to have been fouled by Bailey Wright]. If they got a penalty for what they did, we should have got a penno.
"Overall, I think we were definitely not happy with the way we played on Saturday but we were happy with the way we played tonight.
"I thought we played really well in the first half and I was really pleased with the way we pressed them at the start of the second half, we were all over them.
"It’s just disappointing because I think that would have been the perfect away performance. The pleasing thing for me was that we went 1-0 down and we came back into it and I think we just got on top.”
Despite the defeat the Blues remain second and reflecting on the opening 11 games of the campaign in which Town have won seven, drawn one and lost three, Judge is happy enough.
"I think for the way that we’re trying to play, I think we’re doing quite well at the moment,” he reflected. "There are going to be a few bumps along the way.
"We’re playing differently to the way we were last year. It takes time. As you saw at Doncaster, sometimes there will be mistakes and we’ll give away goals but then you’ll see tonight where I felt like everything was coming together, maybe we just needed to create a few more chances. Overall, I think we’re doing OK.”