EASTLEIGH boss Kelvin Davies felt that the referee was correct in his decision to send off Zanda Siziba and Ryan Fallowfield in the 1-0 victory over York City on Saturday.

Davies oversaw his Eastleigh side defeat York 1-0 at the LNER Community Stadium, with City being reduced to nine men following red cards to Siziba and Fallowfield, before the Spitfires took advantage with Luke Croll netting the winner in controversial fashion.

York manager Adam Hinshelwood claimed that he was ‘baffled’ by referee Dean Watson’s decision-making, but Davies agreed with the decision made on both red cards, feeling that the energy around the stadium affected the clash with the Eastleigh boss not hearing too many complaints against Watson's decisions.

“We work hard on our set-plays, it’s a set-play goal and we’ve got players in our team with a great delivery," Davies told the Eastleigh media team.

“Thankfully, it was one of those moments today that gave us the three points.

“He [Joe McDonnell] managed to defend his goal well, and in key moments he was being there to do his job, he did that really well.

“You go a bit on the energy in the stadium and the feeling at the time, but there weren’t many complaints and it’s not one to act on.

“It looked like a straight red [to Siziba], it was a straight legged tackle and the ref was close enough.

“The second one [Fallowfield’s red card] was obviously a second booking, and it was in that emotion where with the powerful running he’s [Croll] got when carrying the ball, he takes some stopping.

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“The guy chose to make that challenge and it’s always on a knife edge when you do, it went against York today.”

Away from the refereeing performance, Davies was pleased with how his side handled City’s possession-based style in a match where neither side could be separated in the table prior to kick-off.

Davies admitted: “It’s a real positive day for us, another clean sheet since we’ve come in, which is important.

“It was a tough test, two teams sat on the same points at the bottom of the league, you know it was going to be a decisive day.

“To come away with a win is obviously very pleasing, we kept our discipline really well in the game, had some strong performances in the team.

“There are moments we’d like to improve, but we controlled what we could with what we wanted from the lads. We know the style of play they had with their group being possession-based, they like to touch play a lot and we felt that it wasn’t going to hurt us in positions.

“We were happy with that, to a certain extent, we knew there were going to be moments in the game for us to take the advantage.”

Davies also took the time to give credit to York, labelling City as a ‘proper football club’ after making the long journey up from Eastleigh, and used that in his pre-match discussion to his players.

“The discussion was that it’s a long way to come to York, they are a proper football club, well organised and we were going to have a tough game," Davies praised.

“To turn up and perform the way we did, I’m really pleased.”