WAYNE Lockey has strenuously refuted claims from Warminster that the referee called a halt to their game early because of “excessive abuse from Ringwood Town players.”

Matthew Guy had fired the Wiltshire outfit in front on the half hour and added two more goals late on to inflict a 3-0 defeat on Brewers.

But the Wessex One clash ended in controversy as the referee stopped proceedings with about six to eight minutes still left.

A match report on Warminster Town’s official website concluded: “The game ended in somewhat interesting circumstances when the referee called a halt with around six minutes remaining citing the reason as excessive abuse from the Ringwood Town players.”

Lockey said: “The game was stopped with about eight minutes left. As a club, we won’t be saying anything publicly on the issue until we’ve heard from the Wessex League and seen what the referee’s report says.

“All I can say at the moment is there was no abuse from our players towards the ref.

“We have submitted our own report to the league but I can’t tell you what’s in it.

“What I will say is I’ve never been involved in a game ending that way in my 15 years involvement in football as a manager and player.”

Talking about his mid-table side, Lockey added: “We’ve had a bit of a bad spell with injuries and people being away and missing games.

“We even had 13 players out for one game although we had a few back for this one, in which we kept the ball well and probably had 75 per cent of possession, including 25 attempts to cross the ball with only one finding our forwards, which is bad.

“It was 1-0 going into the last 15 minutes when Warminster caught us on the break.

“All three goals were very similar, long balls which split our defence wide open, so it was frustrating.”

Lockey added: “Warminster’s forwards played well. They had three chances and scored three goals. That was the difference.

“We had lots of chances and never really looked like scoring.”

Ringwood: Page, Old (Morrell 47), Yeats, Pierson, Clark, Payne (Kay 75), Hetherington, Howes, Rogers (Marks 47), Leadbetter, Fleet.

<•>Verwood Town’s scheduled clash at Horndean was cancelled because of a waterlogged pitch.