GARY Bowyer criticised Mike Jones’ failure to send off the player who denied Blackburn Rovers a ‘deserved’ victory in yesterday’s 1-1 derby draw at Wigan Athletic.

James McClean was shown only a yellow card by the Premier League referee for a late lunge on Markus Olsson in first-half injury-time.

And McClean rubbed salt into the wounds when he headed in substitute Shaun Maloney’s 63rd-minute free kick to cancel out Corry Evans’ superb 15th-minute opener.

Rovers boss Bowyer admitted his side, who showed five changes to the one that started the desperately disappointing defeat to Wolves, should have defended Maloney’s ‘unbelievable’ delivery better than they did.

But he was adamant that McClean should not have been on the field to convert it.

After the equaliser Rovers had one glorious chance to win it when Jordan Rhodes saw a shot from point-blank range somehow cleared off the line by Leon Barnett.

And Bowyer said: “We deserved to win. We had two cleared off the line and the Jordan Rhodes one was an unbelievable clearance.

“When it dropped to Jordan everybody expected it to hit the net so fair play to their lad as he didn’t give up on it.

“The reaction from last weekend was good, the intensity was good, and at the death we were really driving on and had another one cleared off the line from Jason Lowe.

“We just needed that rub of the green to get us through but I have to say their goalscorer should not have been on the pitch. I think he broke the long jump record to reach Markus Olsson.

“We get told about leaving the ground with intent and you’re not going to see a clearer example than that. There was a bit of a melee from it but I’m unhappy about the first challenge.

“I watch Premiership games on Sunday and that challenge would be a red all day long.

“We get a referee down from the Premiership and he doesn’t give it. It must be different rules in the Championship.”

Wigan boss Malky Mackay had a different opinion of the game’s big talking point.

He said: “Gary was stood next to me, 70 yards away, maybe he has bionic glasses.

“I thought the referee handled it well.”

Rovers’ sixth successive away match without a win means they are now eight points behind the play-offs in 10th.

Wigan are in even worse form at home with yesterday being their 10th match in a run without a victory in front of their home supporters.

Mackay, whose side remain second from bottom, said: “We got the goal, we looked as if we could go on and win it and we’ll take momentum from finishing the game as we did, the performance and looking hard to beat.

“Certainly as the game wore on we were a lot more dominant against a team that is settled as Gary has had them together for a couple of years now.

“They’re a good team and it was a local derby with a big support from Blackburn so to finish like that I was delighted.”