THE clocks have moved forward, but time stands still for many things in Scottish football.

Contentious refereeing decisions continue to infuriate managers, players, and supporters alike.

The big hand in the middle does not seem to know what the little hand on the line is doing.

And, like a ticking time bomb, they combine to cause massive damage to our game.

Both St Mirren and Celtic have reason to feel aggrieved about the performance of the officials which played such a part in determining that their meeting in Paisley should end 1-1 and with a numerical advantage to the home side, in terms of players who completed the match.

The bonhomie at the beginning, when Celtic formed a guard of honour for the League Cup winners, was lost in a fog of bad decisions which, at times, mystified everyone in attendance and those watching on TV.

The main villain of the piece was referee Bobby Madden.

He may be highly-regarded in SFA and Fifa circles. But it would be no surprise to discover that, when presented with his Easter egg earlier in the day, Madden mis-identified it as a Christmas cracker, so out of sync was he with all that was going on around him.

His assistants were no better, with the simplest and most obvious decisions seemingly beyond their ken.

Andrew McWilliam missed a blatant use of the arm in the penalty area by Georgios Samaras.

Then, the man on the other side of the pitch, Stuart Stevenson, played his part in awarding a spot-kick to Saints for a challenge by Emilio Izaguirre on Esmael Goncalves which was neither a foul nor inside the area.

The officials' motto for the day appeared to be: If you are going to get it wrong, you might as well get it completely wrong.

But, while it is easy to be flippant, for the men involved in both teams there are serious consequences.

St Mirren needed to win to retain any chance of a top-six place, and can point to Madden's decision not to award the first-half penalty, and also a 'goal' for an infringement on Fraser Forster by Paul Dummett who had, in fact, been pushed into the keeper by Izaguirre, as key moments in their season.

Celtic are also licking their wounds after not only having a solid case against the penalty which was awarded for what was nothing other than a dive by Goncalves, but also seeing Victor Wanyama sent off 10 minutes into the second half for a challenge on Paul McGowan which carried no malice, and, at the very worst, merited a yellow card.

Celtic will appeal the dismissal for serious foul play, which, if allowed to stand, would see the Kenyan suspended for their next two matches, the SPL game against Hibs next weekend and the Scottish Cup semi- final the following Sunday.

These are serious consequences for a side already bracing themselves for having to cope without Kris Commons for a number of weeks after he was stretchered off following a collision with Beram Kayal.

The Israeli accidentally stamped on the inside of the Scotland midfielder's left ankle.

Commons is a key player for Celtic at the moment, as he underlined by heading them into a sixth-minute lead, his 15th goal of a consistent season for him.

With Scott Brown recovering from the surgery he underwent last week and battling to return before the end of the season, it is another blow to Lennon, who has had to contend with the absence of very important components of his side all through this campaign.

Little wonder he was exasperated by what unfolded before his disbelieving eyes in Paisley.

McGowan's neat conversion of the penalty awarded 10 minutes from time does not make it impossible to clinch the league title this weekend, but it does make it that bit tougher.

Motherwell would now have to lose when they play St Mirren, while the champions would need to take all three points against Hibs at Celtic Park.

There is a perceptible tailing off of Celtic's season, which, given all they have attempted to do domestically and in the Champions League, is understandable.

However, their manager insists the bar will not be lowered, and that the standards they have set must be maintained all the way to the end.

Lennon said: "The only thing that disappointed me about my team was that they did not keep the ball well enough when we went down to 10 men.

"We seemed to get into the mood that what we have we will hold. That's not the way we train them. In the end, we got done by a penalty that was never a penalty.

"So, it could have been three points, but we had to walk away with one, and it's probably a point gained, considering we were down to 10 men for so long. Now we will turn our attention to getting ready for this weekend's game."

The first part of that preparation will be to analyse what went wrong and what went right at St Mirren Park.

"We started the game well, and took the lead, then St Mirren came on strong for a 15-20 minute spell in the first half," said the Hoops boss. "But I don't remember Fraser Forster really having anything sinister to deal with.

"They (St Mirren) were complaining about the goal, but someone has pushed the player into Fraser."

Lennon concedes that the underwhelming performance of the match officials did come to their rescue when Sami used his arm to control an over-hit Gary Teale corner.

However, Lennon wonders if that bit of good fortune came back to bite them later in the match when the ref pointed to the spot.

"Maybe he was trying to even it up," he mused. "But two wrongs don't make a right."