Local Select captain Shannon Burgess is claiming that a linesman's call just might have denied his team of at least a "deserved draw".

Describing Tuesday night's 2-1 loss against New England Revolution as "disheartening", Burgess yesterday gave his own account of the events that occurred in the 75th minute which ultimately swung the match in the visitor's favour.

The former Bermuda national team captain was one of three local players nearest to the decisive play in which linesman Anthony Francis perhaps over -stepped his boundary in overruling referee George O'Brien's initial decision to wave play on.

"I think it was incidental contact. I feel both players were going for the ball and in the New England player's attempt to round our player he tripped over his foot. The referee was in a good position to make the call and the linesman should not have even flagged for it," Burgess argued.

"I was closer to the play than Karl (Roberts) and in my opinion there was no danger. But obviously Adolphous (Lambert) had to try and get to the ball first and the players ran into each other's path. That's the way I saw it and it was incidental contact."

To add insult to injury, linesman Francis, Burgess claimed, refused to shake hands with players from the local select afterwards.

"One of the comments made after the game in the changing room was that the linesman (Francis) that called the penalty refused to shake any of the Bermudian players' hands," said Burgess.

"I know he refused to shake my hand and thought it was just me. Now if we are able to shake a fellow's hand on the opposite side of the field but not with the match officials, then I think that's cause for concern. It's as though they are taking things personal.

"Personally I'm fairly passionate about the game and I may make a comment to the referee but then be the first one to shake his hand after the game. But once in a while referees are going to miss a call because they are human."

However, Francis hit back, claiming he refused to shake hands with Burgess solely because the player had cursed him moments prior to the final whistle.

"Not a second before he had cursed me off and then he came to shake my hand," claimed Francis. "His hand was the only one that I didn't shake."

As for the controversial call, Francis explained: "The striker (New England's Felix Brillant) had the ball and pushed it between two defenders. The centre-back came over; hit him (Brillant) from one side and the full-back hit him from the other and pushed him in the back.

"The player then went down in the box and to me that was a clear cut penalty."

Prior to Francis' intervention, Burgess endured another bout with controversy when he equalised from the penalty spot in the 31st minute. New England 'keeper Matt Reis never attempted to save his spot kick, instead claiming his wasn't ready when the referee blew the whistle and the ball was kicked to his right.

"I had no idea what his gripe was because I was focused on the ball," recalled Burgess. "In my mind he was standing on the line in the middle of the goal. I think he tried a tactic to ice me a bit and it backfired on him. It was his responsibility to be on the line when the referee is ready. Instead they complained referees usually ask the goalkeeper if he ready."

But it was the call that went against the local side which put a big damper on what would have been a highly respectable result.

"I was disappointed because I thought we deserved at a least a draw primarily for the way we worked hard. To lose to a decision like that after working so hard was tough," said Burgess.

"It was very disappointing especially to go that amount of time and fend off the attacks the way we did to be called for a penalty at that time was disheartening.

"We talked about it in the changing room afterwards and Dennis (coach Dennis Brown) pointed out that it's hard but you have to concentrate for 90 minutes. Maybe even before the so-called infringement or alleged infringement a mistake was obviously made for the ball to even get into our box.

"But they are a professional outfit and so as far as physical fitness was concerned they were always going to be a step ahead of us. And that was probably the biggest difference last night.

"I think we were fairly organised defensively but our biggest problem was keeping the ball and building attacks of our own. We actually turned the ball over a lot."