Barrow boss Andy Whing insisted MJ Williams’ sending-off was out of character after he lashed out at Idris Kanu during his side’s entertaining 2-2 draw with Barnet.
Josh Gordon fired the Bluebirds ahead early in the first half before Williams was sent off for an off-the-ball clash with Kanu.
Callum Stead and Adam Senior struck within nine second-half minutes to put the Bees ahead before Nik Tavares’ own goal saw the spoils shared at Holker Street.
“I think in the end it’s a fantastic point,” said Whing.
“We got an early goal. But obviously the sending-off changes the game completely.
“It was a sending-off by the way. I think it’s the ref’s first EFL game today, but I thought he handled it well. I had no complaints with the sending-off.
“It gave us a mountain to climb even though we had a goal advantage. Just with the wind and everything.
“It was a tussle and they were both going at it. You can’t react the way he reacted.
“Especially being a top player like he is. He’s a top pro, a real good person and he’s let the emotion get to him there.
“He had the captain’s armband on and he’s got to be better than that. Especially after the Shipley one last week and I spoke about it.
“They’ve got a good away record and scored a lot of goals in the second half as well.
“We’ve played two games with virtually 10 men for most of it and to come away from four points is a fantastic effort against the league leaders and I think Barnet are the second best away team in the league.”
Barnet have settled to life back in the Football League well and have established themselves in mid-table.
They have gone an impressive six away games without defeat since losing their first game on the road this season.
And boss Dean Brennan said: “The first 40 minutes were as bad as we’ve played this season.
“I was happy we were only 1-0 down at half-time. They were better than us in every department except (Ryan) Glover.
“You can’t come to Barrow with that mentality and in the end we’ve dropped two points and we deserved to drop two points.
“It feels like a defeat. But I’ve been in the game a long time so I’ll respect a point. The players have to take responsibility.
“The first goal was absolute pub (defending). What we did do was we survived when they were so much better than us.
“People aren’t going to give it to us. They aren’t going to let us pass the ball and play. We need to win our duels, win the physicality.
“We need to earn the right to win football games and we didn’t earn the right out there.”
