STEVENAGE boss Steve Evans bemoaned a “horrendous” refereeing performance in his side’s 3-2 defeat at Bolton Wanderers.

The Scot claimed that Bolton should have had at least two men sent off in a feisty game, settled by a fine strike from Josh Sheehan.

Referee Josh Smith branded five yellow cards on the night – three to Bolton, two to Stevenage – but Evans felt he should have sent off Cameron Jerome for clattering Carl Piergianni in the face, and Jack Iredale for a late foul on Jamie Reid in the first half.

“I have to be careful what I say about the match referee… Horrendous,” he said after the game.

“They should be down to nine men, eight men maybe, the challenge on Piergianni (by Jerome) is a penalty but it is also a red card. Every day of the week it is a straight red.

“The one before half time, the player (Iredale) has already made two fouls since he got a caution, it is another one, he should go.

“Then the wee ball boys and ball girls, they were sent away for their cocoa, a night off. But that’s nothing on Bolton, this is a fantastic football club. We made a really good team look average at home but we got nothing for it.

“You make a long trip and get officials like this. They think they have problems with VAR in the Premier League, you have got big problems if that is the standard of officials in League One.”

Ian Evatt unsurprisingly took a different view on Jerome, who claimed the collision with Piergianni had been accidental.

“I don’t know how you can see that – Cam isn’t that type of player, he isn’t just going to elbow someone off the ball. It is just not us,” he said.

“Contact happens. They contacted our players enough and there was an incident first half that I haven’t really talked about where Dion Charles clearly gets elbowed but it is part of the game.

“They got the penalty and, for me, a yellow card and a penalty is fair.

“He jumped for the ball and just didn’t see him behind him. He caught him but it was certainly accidental.”

Wanderers were twice pegged back after going ahead through Dion Charles’s penalty and Jack Iredale’s header, Reid netting both of Stevenage’s goals on the night.

And it was after the visitors’ second goal, scored from the spot, that Evatt was most pleased with his side’s performance.

He added: “The way they rallied after that – it would have been easy for the players to sulk – but they dragged us back twice and we still found another way to get a goal. In teams that I have had here over the years, that has not always been the case. This team is full of personality and character.”