DAVE Webb conceded that his Swindon Supermarine side lacked the necessary quality to beat Larkhall Athletic after they shared an uninspiring goalless draw on Saturday.

Clear-cut chances were at a premium for either side and even the opportunity to play the final 10 minutes against nine men following two red cards for the Larks as a result of an ugly brawl at the Webb’s Wood Stadium could not inspire Marine to muster up a winning goal.

“I don’t think we did enough to win it. If you look at real clear-cut chances we created, I can’t think of too many,” said Webb, whose side are eighth in Division One South & West.

“We haven’t been beaten so I can’t be too downbeat. I am sure they are happy with their point, I’m happy with ours and although I’d like to get three, it’s not a defeat.

“We played for 10 minutes against nine men but even then we haven’t really done enough to win the game. We didn’t really test the keeper in those 10 minutes and that really summed up the afternoon.

“We didn’t really have enough quality to break them down, which is unlike us as we have been scoring a lot of goals and that’s the first time we haven’t scored this season.

“It’s a good point against a good side but we now need to try to win our game in hand on Tuesday night against Shortwood to get us back in that top four of five positions that we want to be in.”

The major moment in what was an overall lacklustre contest came in the final 10 minutes when Marine’s Callum Parsons was brought down by an over-zealous challenge from Daniel Jones, which sparked a mass brawl between the players.

Visiting goalkeeper Ben John rushed from his line and appeared to strike Marine’s Brad Hooper with both a knee and fist, with referee Edward Turner giving both Larks defender and stopper their marching orders as a result.

Webb was left perplexed by a series of what he felt were poor decisions by the officials prior to that and believes they failed to properly keep a lid on the game.

“I don’t criticise officials but there are some very strange decisions that he hasn’t made and some that he has,” said Webb.

“You could say the two sendings off are correct decisions, because the keeper has come out and decked somebody and the other lad is over the top of the ball.

“In the letter of the law, they are red cards but some of the other decisions – I thought there was a stonewall penalty for us but he hasn’t given it.

“You can see the frustration and the game lost control because it just wasn’t controlled properly by the man in the middle.

“Everyone is passionate and everyone is up for it so you know you are going to get incidents that flare up.

“The best officials don’t let it get to that stage by controlling the players and it was just some bad decisions that got the players aggravated and that’s probably why there was a brawl.”