Referee James Adcock didn’t have a great game on Saturday said Gills boss Steve Evans.

Evans admitted his own team’s performance in the first half on Saturday wasn’t up to scratch but they got no help from the man in the middle.

His decision to allow play to continue, after a foul on Connor Ogilvie, led to Shrewsbury’s opener. It wasn’t until stoppage-time that the Gills equalised.

Ogilvie had been taken out by home winger Shaun Whalley, but the defender still got to his feet to put the ball out for a corner after Mr Adcock played on. From that corner Shrewsbury got their opener.

Evans said: “I can only think that the referee was unsighted. I have had James Adcock as referee many times, he is a good referee, but I didn’t think he had a good game.

“If you look at an almost identical challenge in the second half, it was Declan Drysdale (Gillingham’s second half substitute) who commits the offence and quite rightly gets the yellow card, no complaints, he was late. He probably felt he got there as quick as he could.

“It’s a yellow but the challenge in the first half was probably worse than that.”

Evans got into a heated debate about that and a robust challenge on Jordan Graham that went unpunished. Mr Adcock appeared to book Evans for his protests too.

The Gills manager said: “We didn’t have any decisions go our way, not one, we didn’t get any 50-50 and that can happen but it seemed to be a repeat offence.

“I said to the players at half-time, don’t get involved in it, stay away from it, continue to work hard and when you score late it feels like a point won.”

Gillingham eventually got something from the game, which they deserved, with Evans as vocal as ever from the touchline, something he commented on about after the game.

He said: “I heard Mark Lawrenson (football pundit) speak on the BBC that afternoon and he spoke about managers fighting and battling on the side and he said that when you are a player, you want to see that. You want to see your manager and your staff fighting for you, not arms folded. I do that every week. I fight, I am in the trenches with them.”

More on the Gills;

Boss backs forward to hit plenty of goals this season

Competition for places set to hot up at Gills

Match Report: Shrewsbury Town 1 Gillingham 1

Reaction: That's more like it! Second half showing pleases boss