Whitehawk boss Steve King felt Ebbsfleet should have been reduced to 10 men on Saturday.

Joe Howe conceded a penalty and was cautioned for bringing down Nick Arnold midway through the first half but King was convinced the full-back should have seen red.

He said: "The left-back should have been sent off. The law is denying a goalscoring opportunity, it's not if people are coming round or whatever. The next thing that he (Arnold) does is shoot across the goalkeeper, so it's a goalscoring opportunity.

"For me, our player's got in front of Joe Howe and he's going to shot across the goal, so that's denying a goalscoring opportunity. Why has he booked him? It's a red card."

Howe insisted there was no contact and plenty of fans close to the incident felt Arnold had dived.

Ebbsfleet boss Daryl McMahon said: "It’s difficult to see it from where I am. He’s got a bit of a better view from his dugout, to be fair.

"I’ll have to watch it again but I thought it was a penalty. It was a good pass from Torres and it was definitely a penalty.

"Whether it was a red card or not, I’m not sure. He looked quite wide, to be fair, it didn’t look like he was going towards the goal."

The penalty, taken by Sam Deering, was saved by Brandon Hall although Whitehawk scored from the resulting corner when David Ijaha bundled the ball in from close-range.

McMahon said: "I was sitting on the bench predicting the future. I had a feeling they were going to score from the corner.

"We got so excited because we saved the penalty that we forgot about our jobs and defending properly. We got a little bit carried away and a little bit excited because Brandon saved the penalty and we didn’t do our jobs defensively from the corner."