Ardley blasts officials

Neal Ardley was critical of the match officials and blamed the referee for AFC Wimbledon's 2-1 defeat to Stevenage.

Fresh from pushing Premier League giants Liverpool all the way in the FA Cup on Monday, the Dons looked on course for a point at the Lamex Stadium as George Francomb quickly cancelled out Tom Pett's 32nd-minute opener for the hosts. But with 20 minutes left, referee Graham Horwood decided that Deji Oshilaja had fouled Dean Wells inside the box and Simon Walton stepped up to fire home the resulting penalty to win the game for Stevenage. Ardley was adamant his players had been hard done and disagreed with the award of the spot-kick. "It doesn't surprise me that it went that way, I thought the officiating all game was awful," Ardley said. "They were hard conditions and it was a scrappy, tough League Two game and I thought in the end he was giving bad decisions for us to counteract the ones he'd given against us. "We've had a tough week emotionally and physically with the Liverpool game and I asked my players to go out there and make sure they were ready for a League Two battle - and they did. They gave me absolutely everything in terms of effort, energy and competitiveness. "It's a brave decision to give it [the penalty] and down the other end one player blatantly doesn't play the ball and it doesn't surprise me he never gave it. "I thought the game was a draw all over, two teams fighting and scrapping in mid-table pushing for the play-offs. But unfortunately it hasn't ended up that way for us and it hurts." As for Stevenage, they now boast an unbeaten run that stretches to five games and they sit one place and one point outside the play-off places. Boro boss Graham Westley believes this is just the start with his players having found their groove early in 2015. "The conditions were hard. I thought we worked very hard and up until the point where we scored I thought we did very well," Westley said. "We dropped our standards a bit once the goal went in and gave away a sloppy goal by the standards we're capable of. "In the second half I thought we took the game to them and showed an intention to win. We perhaps weren't clinical enough and we need to add a bit more edge and ruthlessness to our play but we won the penalty, scored the penalty and did enough to win the game. "The penalty late on at Morecambe that wasn't given last week, everyone in the ground knew it was a penalty. I think when that challenge went in everyone in the ground knew it was a penalty. I'm surprised the police weren't on for a GBH charge to be honest. "We won and that's the important thing. The next game is your focus and the players are getting into that rhythm at the moment of focussing on the game and preparing professionally and going out and doing the job."