WHY is it that, in order to get a penalty, footballers need to fall on the floor?

On Saturday, Rovers were denied a spot kick when Todd Kane was fouled in the box in the final 10 minutes.

Gary Bowyer was rightly aggrieved, and you have to wonder if had the Chelsea loanee gone to ground, would the referee’s reaction be different?

Football is so synonymous with players too quick to roll around these days that hitting the deck, rolling around holding your knee is the only way to prove you have been impeded by an opposition player.

If I was walking down the street and someone bumped into me on purpose, knocking me off my stride, I wouldn’t fall over.

And surely the same laws of physics should apply on the football field.

Not every bad tackle results in a broken leg and a big tumble, but all it takes is for the player to be put off from what he is doing.

Had Craig Forsyth not shoved Kane, he may well have slammed his shot into the bottom corner and restored our lead.

Had Kane thrown himself on the floor, he may well have won us a penalty.

As it was, he stayed on his feet, hit the ball wide and it wasn’t a foul.

At Forest, Henri Lansbury, who doesn’t look like to me like a featherweight, went to ground under a soft challenge from Grant Hanley.

Had he stayed on his feet, would it have been a penalty? I don’t think so.

Of course, we can’t just blame referees for everything and Derby certainly did enough to merit a point.

It is a real shame we dropped the two points, though, as with the victory we would have been just a point off the play-offs with two extremely winnable games coming up.

We now must take advantage of the fixture list which has pitted us against two sides who can’t seem to buy a win.

Hopefully this time next week we will be six points better off and really pushing for those play-off places.