REFEREE Stephen Brown incurred the wrath of the Auchinleck Talbot supporters and dugout after a potentially life-threatening incident at Blair Park on Monday night.

With Stephen Wilson taking a blow to the head, Brown failed to stop play and allow physio Mick McGinn on to treat him.

When the ball did eventually go out of play, McGinn ran onto the pitch only to be confronted – within two yards of the injured Wilson – by the referee who told him to get back off.

The Talbot bench were incredulous and Brown spoke with assistant Allan McLuckie, pictured above with Sloan, after he loudly complained that an incident like that could cost a player his life.

After the match, boss Tommy Sloan explained what happened: “The referee actually apologised to Allan McLuckie because the linesman hadn’t told him it was a head knock. Stephen [Wilson]’s went down with a bang on the head and they’ve not stopped the game whereas they did earlier in the match.”

Talbot’s season came to a disappointing end as they lost 1-0 to Hurlford United in the West of Scotland Cup semi-finals.

Stewart Kean scored the only goal of the game after he lobbed Andy Leishman from outside the box in the first half.

There looked like two offsides in the build-up to the goal but Sloan wasn’t going to dwell on it.

He added: “You get that up here, there’s a lot of stuff with refs but, rather than greet about refereeing decisions, it’s more of a concern for me that they have more of an appetite for the start of the game.

“I thought, in the first bit of the game, they looked a bit hungrier than us and when you go behind here you know what you’re getting.

"It’s important you don’t lose the first goal and we did. It’s a flick on and a finish and we couldn’t defend it. That’s not good enough.

“It was a disappointing end, no question about that, so it could have been a lot better. We weren’t quite up to it tonight, we didn’t quite get there and there was a lot of huffing and puffing.

“The wee last bit wasn’t there tonight, the quality in the cross or the ball wasn’t quite there tonight and it’s a more difficult pitch to do it on.”