Republic of Ireland striker Simon Cox has admitted the ball brushed his arm before Armenian keeper Roman Berezovsky was accused of handball outside the penalty area in a Euro-2012 qualifier last night.

The incident that happened in Minute 26 when the scoreboard still showed 0-0 and Armenia were putting up quite a solid performance in front of some 50,000 Irish fans (and a few hundred Armenians) at Aviva Stadium cost the visitors their veteran goalkeeper and as it turned out later a whole chance to get a needed win in the crunch fixture.

In a report on the Republic of Ireland’s 2-1 victory that secured their playoff games the BBC wrote that “replays showed Berezovsky blocking the shot with his chest but the referee had made his decision.”

“To increase the Armenians’ sense of injustice, Cox appeared to have had himself handled in controlling the long ball over the top of the defence,” the report said.

The night went wrong for Armenia in many ways, including an own goal by otherwise well-playing defender Valery Alexanyan, an unfortunate mistake by young goalkeeper Arsen Petrosyan that resulted in a second goal, etc. Read the match report here: http://www.armenianow.com/sports/soccer/32340/armenia_ireland_soccer_euro2012

Read the BBC report here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/15230446.stm