'You’re up against it when you’re not getting those' - Loughgall boss Dean Smith left frustrated with number of officiating calls during Linfield defeat

The Villagers fell behind early on when Chris McKee calmly struck home from the penalty spot after a Loughgall player had been adjudged to handle the ball attempting to block Joel Cooper’s free-kick, while things quickly went from bad to worse for the visitors when Sam Roscoe powered home his first of two goals soon after.

Smith felt incorrect calls had a direct involvement in both goals – goalkeeper Nathan Gartside didn’t appear to touch McKee’s shot which was awarded as a corner with Cooper finding Roscoe to double the Blues’ advantage.

David Healy’s side proceeded to score four times in the first-half with an impressive Cooper, who also provided the assist for Roscoe’s second, firing home from close range before Ethan McGee added another after the break.

"It’s a game you want to draw a line under and move on quickly,” said Smith. “It was a tough day at the office.

"We come to places like this and we need a bit of help at times and the officials didn’t really give us a helping hand.

"From my view the ball does hit his hand (for Linfield’s opening goal) but it’s in a natural position.

"And the second one isn’t a corner, which leads to the goal.

"That’s a really frustrating one because the referee has a really good view of it and three assistant referees standing there that can help him.

"It probably isn’t going to change the destination of the three points.

"But you’re up against it when you’re not getting those decisions.

"It is (hard to recover) and it’s probably a bit of us as well – we need to cope with set-pieces.

"Three of the first four goals come from set-pieces so we’re frustrated with that and know we can do better.

"I thought we didn’t get into the game at all in the first 15 minutes and give the ball away a lot, which is very unlike us.”

Loughgall looked to have suffered an injury blow when Nathaniel Ferris limped off.

But Smith is hopeful it won’t be a long-term issue.

"Nathaniel has a slight hamstring injury,” he added. “We’ll assess it on Monday.

"But he doesn’t think it’s too bad at the minute.”