Gillingham manager Andy Hessenthaler was disappointed with his team’s lack of spark as they were held on home turf by Hereford.

The Gills boss was also frustrated by referee Paul Tierney, who booked eight players and sent both assistant managers to the stand for protesting.

Hessenthaler said: “I thought the referee had a poor game but we can’t just harp on about him.

“The game was very stop start and the whistle blew too many times. He was disappointing but so we were.

“There was no real spark even though we started the game like the way I asked the players to. We started very well and got on our front foot.

“We had an opportunity with Cody McDonald and he put a shot just the other side of the post. Had that gone in it might have settled us down.

“I don’t know if we were a little bit nervous because we have come to that critical stage of the season, but it looked a bit like that for some reason.

“They shouldn’t be nervous. We have put ourselves into a position where we can really go for it and we just didn’t fire. There were two or three who did, but for a lot of players out there the game passed them by.”

Assistant Ian Hendon was sent to the stand for arguing with Mr Tierney over what the Gills management staff thought was an elbow on their striker McDonald.

“Cody has a tennis ball under his eye, which the referee missed,” Hessenthaler said.

“He has a massive egg on his face and it came up in seconds.”

Hereford manager Jamie Pitman confessed to Hessenthaler after the game that they came to Gillingham with one thing in mind, to frustrate and to leave with whatever the could.

“They came to do a job on us and they did that,” said Hessenthaler.

“Fair play to them. They came to frustrate the life out of us. They did it, the referee did it. The goalkeeper took an age on the ball and they did the same when they had a throw. It was one of those afternoons but you can’t knock them for that.”