Carlisle manager Chris Beech felt robbed by referee Seb Stockbridge after his side’s derby-day 2-2 draw with Barrow

Beech was left irate when Neal Eardley escaped a second yellow card for a foul on Lewis Alessandra in the first half.

Jack Armer opened the scoring after just three minutes before Scott Quigley and Patrick Brough turned the game around.

But Offrande Zanzala’s 79th-minute penalty saw the points shared at Holker Street.

“I was a little bit disappointed with the referee. I think he’s helped them out a lot there,” moaned Beech.

“However he wants to explain it, I’m not interested.

“He’s allowed a player to not be reffed. Of course Rob’s [Kelly] clever and he brings him off so he’s allowed 11 players on the pitch.

“There’s nothing I can do about that, but I’m pleased we can battle back from negatives like that.

“I’m pleased we battled back from a goal down to getting it level.

“When we first recovered from having the games off due to Covid, that’s something that would definitely have hurt us at the time and I believe we would have lost that two months ago.

“But we’re dealing with those discrepancies better now and we got back into it.

“We’ve managed to equalise and I think we looked more likely to get a third.”

Battling Barrow are six points clear of the drop zone and caretaker boss Rob Kelly praised his side’s character after they overcame an early setback.

He said: “I was pleased with the character after conceding so early in the game. That’s something that doesn’t normally happen to us. We showed a lot of character to come back.

“It would have been fantastic with a crowd in here, they would have really enjoyed it because both teams approached it to win it.

“We knew it would be a tough game, but it feels like we’ve left a couple of points out there because of the manner of the goal – we should do better.

“But we take a point. It keeps the scoreboard ticking over.

“They scored two set-pieces against Scunthorpe, I watched the game so we were aware of that.

“We’re normally quite solid and quite diligent on that side of it.

“It’s disappointing and the players hold their hands up. In the end it’s individuals and they have to do their jobs.

“They’re not robots, they will get better at it and we’ll work on it.”