Disappointed Cowley felt referee Kinseley lost '˜emotional control'

Lincoln's Harry Anderson is sent off against Luton

The Imps had been leading 2-1 at the time, with Luton already down to 10 men once captain Alan Sheehan was dismissed in the fourth minute, before Anderson’s challenge on Andrew Shinnie just nine minutes before the break was deemed worthy of a second booking to make it 10 v 10.

Cowley said: ““We’re really disappointed with the referee’s decision to send Harry off, because it’s obviously a huge changing point in the game.

“It’s absolutely never, ever a sending off, I’ve watched it back, he just won the ball clearly.

“It’s right in front of us, he’s taken all the ball, taken none of the player and course he’s an athletic boy, he’s gone towards the player that’s in possession and just won the ball completely fairly.

“It was a hard game to referee, definitely, and he was brave with his first decision to send the centre half off.

“Again, it’s not me avoiding it, I didn’t see it, so I can’t say if it was or it wasn’t, but from there on, he was completely influenced and he got so caught up with the emotions of the game.

“He went through a period where every foul was a yellow card and he left himself nowhere to go.

“He really lost emotional control and that made it very difficult for him to think clearly and execute and apply the right decisions.”

Luton boss Nathan Jones felt it was the right call to make though, saying: “It was coming you felt. You could just they were losing little things, tackles were going in and so on, and I think that came from their frustration that we were actually keeping the ball better with 10 men and that’s what contributed to it.

“It’s a late challenge and normally would be a yellow card under any other circumstances, but it will be scrutinised slightly more because it was a second one.

“But I don’t have any qualms about ours and certainly don’t have any qualms about there’s.”

Meanwhile, striker Danny Hylton felt Anderson should have stayed out of trouble after picking up an earlier caution, saying: “He was already on a booking and when the crowd’s getting on every tackle and the crowd’s getting on the ref, I think it was a little bit silly to jump in the way he did.

“Yes, he probably did get the ball, but he’s jumped in a little bit and on a booking, he probably shouldn’t do that, especially when we’ve had a man sent off as well.

“So the ref evened it up and I’m glad he did.”