Givens fumes at official

Don Givens will ask the Football Association of Ireland to write to UEFA to complain about the performance of the referee after his Republic Under-21 team drew 1-1 with Georgia.

Hungarian official Janos Megyebiro controversially showed two yellow cards to Nottingham Forest’s Andrew Reid in the space of a minute to reduce the Irish to 10 men before half time.

Reid picked up his first booking when he was involved in a tussle with an opposing defender as he tried to take a 31st minute free-kick.

Then, when he finally delivered the set-piece into the Georgian penalty area, the referee pulled him up for not waiting for his whistle, and brandished a second yellow card followed by a red.

“That was the worst performance I have seen from a referee for a long time,” said angry boss Givens. “It was worse than poor, it was scandalous.

“The poorest decision was the first one. Andy went to take a quick free-kick, the Georgian boy pushed him and he booked both of them.

“Hopefully we can officially complain about that referee because I felt it was the worst performance I have seen from an official for a long time.

“I would like the FAI to write an official letter to say the standard of that referee was not what we would expect.

“It was a hometown performance, yet he couldn’t have been intimidated by the crowd because there were not many there.

“But it was a learning curve for the boys – not only did they have to put up with a very poor pitch, they had to put up with a very poor referee as well.”

Givens was delighted his players salvaged their first point of the campaign thanks to an equaliser from Noel Hunt four minutes from time, even though he was disappointed with the overall performance.

“I am delighted the lads got something out of it, they deserved something out of it for the work they put in and at least they went into the dressing room with something to show from it,” said Givens.

“I thought Jonathan Daly worked his socks off up front and was outstanding.

“We didn’t play well because some of our key players and experienced players weren’t on form – and you cannot blame the referee for that.”

Givens was also unhappy with the state of the pitch in the National Stadium and added: “I told the boys before we came it would be worst pitch they had ever played on and I don’t think I ever played on a worse one that that.”

Reid will be suspended for Tuesday’s game in Albania, and Ireland may also lose Manchester United defender Paul Tierney, who came off at half time with the recurrence of a knee injury.