Melbourne Victory coach Arthur Diles has been left raging after his side's defeat at Adelaide United, convinced that match officials wrongly ruled out what might have proved an 88th minute winner for the visitors.
Inflicting further misery, the Reds went on to score in the 97th minute and record a dramatic 2-1 win, snatching all three points at home in front of a sold-out crowd on Saturday.
Craig Goodwin had given United the lead in the sixth minute before the Reds had a goal of their own disallowed on 68 minutes when Ryan Kitto's strike to make it 2-0 was rubbed out for offside.
Victory substitute Matthew Grimaldi made it 1-1 in the 75th minute, levelling up after Craig Goodwin's early goal, and he found the net again soon afterwards to have the visitors seemingly on course for a memorable win.
But after VAR intervened, referee Lachlan Keevers ruled out the goal, determining Keegan Jelacic was offside when impeding the view of Reds keeper Joshua Smits.
Diles was calm and composed in his post-match media conference, but labelled the decision as an incompetent one, highlighting the ramifications of such a controversial decision, which replays suggested was harsh.
"In the end, we'll probably get an email during the week, maybe, telling us they miight have got it wrong," he said of the match officials.
"It doesn't change anything. They're not held accountable in my eyes. I'm held accountable every day; my players are held accountable every day; they're not. They're not volunteers, they get paid.
"And when you get paid, things are expected of you, certain standards and you've got to uphold that because in the end, the game suffers.
"And in the end, I'm just so pissed off for my fans who turned up in hundreds and made this atmosphere incredible like it always is and they're probably gut-wrenching and it's hurting, and it's hurting us.
"In the end, I hate the fact I'm talking about a referee's decision, it's not my character, I don't like it. I want to talk about the game, I want to talk about the football, I want to talk about goals. I don't want to talk about incompetency.
"It's unfortunate for everyone involved because in the end, this is a fantastic spectacle, probably one of the best games of the season.
"That's the most disappointing part because we shouldn't be talking about the referee and a poor decision, we should be talking about how good that game was."
Meanwhile, Adelaide coach Airton Andrioli heaped praise on his players for their response after the Reds had had a 68th minute goal ruled out for offside which would have put them 2-0 up.
"That disallowed goal affected us mentally because it took so long for the decision to be made," he said.
"And then the decision went against us, because it was offside, so that was tough to come back.
"I've got to give credit to the players for being emotionally strong.
"Our experienced players played a big part. We want that from players like Ryan Kitto, Bart (Vriends), Craig Goodwin."
On a personal note, Andrioli was thrilled to have notched his first win as coach in the clash that has been dubbed the 'Original Rivalry'.
"I'm extremely proud – this is my first win in such an iconic game in Australia," he said.
