Melbourne Victory want clarity on referee's calls in 1-0 A-League loss to Central Coast Mariners

Melbourne Victory will seek clarification from Football Australia on several controversial refereeing calls that went against Tony Popovic’s side as they were reduced to nine men in a dramatic 1-0 loss to Central Coast.

The Mariners won through Ryan Teague’s own goal in the 48th minute, when he chested a fantastic Angel Torres free kick into his own net, while three players were red-carded in the second half.

But Victory believed Mariners star Torres should have been sent off for leading in with his head on Connor Chapman in the 65th minute.

The action drew a dramatic, delayed reaction from the defender - but referee Tim Danaskos only booked Torres.

“They reviewed it and they deemed it not to be a red,” Popovic said.

“Normally when you see contact like that, you’d expect a red card. But we didn’t get that.”

He then sarcastically compared the incident to Victory defender Jason Geria being booked for a head clash with Storm Roux in the first half - noting “maybe they deemed that a similar challenge.”

Mariners counterpart Mark Jackson saw the Torres incident differently.

“I haven’t seen it back but I don’t think he led in with his head,” he said.

“You’ve got to trust the officials to make the right decisions and that’s what we do.”

Victory skipper Roderick Miranda correctly received a second yellow card for dragging down Alou Kuol in the 81st minute.

Then, after a referral from VAR Casey Reibelt, youngster Jordi Valadon received a straight red in the 90th minute for denying what was deemed an obvious goal scoring opportunity by fouling Kuol, although Geria appeared to be covering.

“That one’s a tough one for me to understand because Jordi’s not the last man,” Popovic said.

“I saw it live and he wasn’t the last man. I don’t even think it was a foul and the ref didn’t give it as a foul. Surprising part for me is he went to VAR and deemed that as a last man - but Jason Geria’s clearly the last man.

“Had he not looked at it, OK, he can make a decision. But once he reviewed it, I’m really surprised that he gave that.”

Victory were also denied an 85th-minute penalty after Nathan Paull appeared to handball a Bruno Fornaroli shot in the area - with Popovic adamant that should have been a spot-kick.

FA can clearly expect a call from Victory on Monday.

“We’ll certainly look for clarification on all the decisions,” Popovic said.

“He’s (Danaskos) a young up and coming referee and we’ve had him a couple of times recently and it hasn’t gone our way.

“You could see that second half we didn’t really get any of those lineball decisions and we finished the game with nine men, which is never great.”

Central Coast’s Ronald Barcellos was sent off in the 97th minute, following a VAR review, for a studs-up tackle on Chapman.

Jackson’s charges (34 points) now sit outright second, three points behind leaders Wellington and three ahead of Victory.

Coming into Sunday’s match, Central Coast had never beaten the Victory in 14 attempts at AAMI Park and had just four wins from their 34 matches there.

“This stadium, we’ve not won here for ever, I don’t think,” Jackson said.

“For us to break that today, I’m just delighted.”