Ben Garner has called on referees to do more to tackle persistent fouling after Swindon Town and Bristol Rovers played out a hard-fought draw at the weekend.
The former Rovers manager believes his side were hampered by "repeated fouls" by Joey Barton's Gas at the County Ground on Saturday, with midfielder Jonny Williams, in particular, "targeted".
Rovers received six yellow cards in the game, with Ellis Iandolo Swindon's sole recipient of a booking after Sam Finley's goal cancelled Tyreece Simpson's opener for the Robins.
"I thought there were a few bad tackles in the game," Garner told the Swindon Advertiser.
“I wouldn’t like to comment properly without seeing anything back, but that number of yellow cards in the game is a lot, and I think there was a lot of consistent fouling.
“Jonny Williams was targeted. He was fouled time and time again, and I would like to see officials being stronger with that.
“First of all, in regards to the welfare of the players, and secondly to let the game flow and be entertaining for the supporters.”
According to WhoScored, Rovers are League Two's most-fouled team at 13.7 per game. They rank 16th for fouls committed.
The match in question finished with both sides committing 13 fouls.
Garner believes Barton's side used physical tactics at the County Ground and he admits his side could have done more to cope with Rovers' approach.
Swindon were restricted to 43 per cent of possession by the Gas and Garner believes the referees could have done more to help his side implement their game plan.
“They came to be aggressive, they came to try and disrupt," the Swindon boss added.
“We have to look at ourselves and see how we can be better at that.
“Hopefully, the officials will look at themselves and say 'How do we allow the game to flow more and allow teams that want to play football to be given the opportunity to do so'?
“I’m not saying teams can’t press us or get after us, of course they can, but it’s just the repeated fouls and disruption of the game. That’s what I’d like to see taken out.”
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