SWINDON Town manager Richie Wellens compared referee Craig Hicks’ motions to viral online videos after his side’s weekend defeat to Forest Green Rovers.

Rovers left the contest 2-0 victors but not before Swindon had a strong penalty call turned down by the match official.

Midfielders Michael Doughty and Anthony Grant also had to contend with first-half yellow cards before Forest Green – who ended an eight-game winless run with their victory – ran down the clock.

And post-match Wellens likened Hicks to gifs; truncated clips of humorous or dramatic moments used widely on social media and online messaging.

“I think the referee wanted at times to make the game about him,” the Town boss said.

“Have you ever seen on Twitter the referees that walk around in gifs and do the most dramatic cards and the most dramatic pointing?

“If you’ve seen the ref, it’s like he’s chartering a plane to park up on a runway.

“Blow your whistle, point a direction and get on with the game.

“They’re trying to waste time, the keeper goes down and what does he do? Spends 35 seconds speaking to the goalkeeper. It’s about him.

“Very dramatic in his actions and I think he got a number of things wrong.”

Amid the late-game tactics Rovers used to wind down the clock, Nathan McGinley took his time on throw-ins.

After one small fracas, the full-back then refused to take another while urging Wellens away from the touchline.

The Swindon chief, however, was more infuriated by the referee’s inability to curb the time wasting that Forest Green’s own actions.

He said: “The ball boy throws him the ball, he’s not thrown it very hard, the lad can easily catch it to take a throw-in.

“Not only does he do it once, he does it a few times.

“Then he (the referee) only puts up five minutes at the end when the goalkeeper’s gone down, the centre-half’s gone down, they’re all time wasting.

“I’m not asking their players to run and take throw-ins, but the referee should allow the game to flow within the laws of the game. I don’t think he did that.

“In fact, he had a ten-minute spell where he just lost total control of the game.”