"If our bosses were as good as our refs the game would be in great shape", the headline screamed at me on Saturday morning.

I almost choked on my Crunchy Nut Cornflakes as I attempted to digest the offerings of referee Chris Boyle.

This was the Category One official's parting shot ahead of his final SPL match in charge before emigrating to Australia.

Scottish football isn't great at the moment and neither is the standard of refereeing so this kind of outbursting doesn't help anybody.

The timing of his blast couldn't have been worse as it comes when referees' chief Hugh Dallas is working his backside off to build bridges,

The majority of managers I've spoken to were pretty irked about Boyle's article because of an SPL official to come out with something like that was below the belt.If a manager or coach directed the same critisms at a referee they would be hauled up in front of the SFA beaks.

I feel it is only fair the clubs are given a chance to respond as I would like to know how Boyle would respond if he was in our position.

Indeed, how would he feel if he was involved with a football team who had worked hard all week only to see a hard-earned victory ripped from their grasp because the referee wrongly awards a penalty that costs you the game?

Rights

Football is an emotional sport so I would like to see how he reacts, because that is what he is complaining about.

You simply cant have one rule for refs and another for managers just because too many of the current whistlers think they are being commented upon.Nobody deliberately blames referees for a defeat players and coaches are well within their rights to point the finger at decisions which are clearly wrong.

If Boyle felt like this then why did he wait until he was disappearing to the other side of the world before airing his grievances?

Yet, I got the impression the refereeing fraternity were mobilising their forces at the weekend because Stuart Dougal also had an unfair pop at St Mirren's Gus MacPherson.

Of course we live in a land of free speech and everybody is entitled to an opinion but surely comments such as these are only undermining the tireless work of Dallas, who is doing his utmost to foster a good relationship between managers and officials.

On a more positive note, it was terrific for Kilmarnock to get a desperately needed win on the board last weekend against St Johnstone.

Ironically, the first-half performance was the worst we have played this season.St Johnstone dominated us and we had to earn our corn at the interval.

It wasn't a time to shout and bawl as our players looked as nervous as kittens for some reason.

Respect

Thankfully, we managed to sort out the situation and once we scored the first goal we started to look more like ourselves and eventually got our just rewards.

The win will give us a chance to cross swords with the new Celtic management team of Tony Mowbray and Mark Venus.

I've always had a lot of respect for Tony from his days at Hibs and he is a single-minded man who wants his team to play a certain way.

Kilmarnock have a deplorable record in Glasgow's East End but we did well against Tony when he was at Easter Road.

Here's hoping we can finally end a wretched run of results at Celtic.

As told to Colin Duncan.