Mansfield manager Billy Dearden blamed a series of "diabolical" refereeing decisions for his side's controversial 1-0 defeat to Darlington.Richie Foran's penalty gave the promotion-chasing Quakers their third successive win and third straight clean sheet, at the same time inflicting a third home defeat on the trot for Mansfield.

There appeared few protests from the visitors following Dan Martin's challenge on Ian Miller just before the half hour, but referee Michael Jones pointed to the spot to the fury of the home supporters. Up stepped Foran to drill a low shot just inside Carl Muggleton's left-hand post.

Dearden said: "At the end of the day the penalty has cost us the game. I don't want to comment about the referee but I think one or two decisions went against us.

"I think everyone was stunned when he gave the penalty as the ball was nowhere near. The referee happened to see a shirt pulled or whatever. I will have to have a look at the video but I think the lad conned the referee whether he had a hand on him or not.

"There were a couple of times I didn't think Mickey Boulding was offside and there were times when he pulled play back to give us free-kicks when we would have been better off playing on. He wouldn't let the game flow."

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