Australia goalkeeper Mat Ryan said his side was beaten "by technology a little bit" after its 2-1 World Cup defeat to France but claimed he did not want to cause controversy over the use of VAR.
Match referee Andres Cunha consulted replays before adjudging Josh Risdon to have fouled Antoine Griezmann in the penalty area, the Atletico Madrid forward converting the resulting spot-kick.
Mile Jedinak levelled with a penalty for the Socceroos but Paul Pogba's goal – confirmed by VAR – sealed all three Group C points for France.
Brighton and Hove Albion goalkeeper Ryan told reporters the defeat was difficult to digest, saying: "I feel hard done by. I feel like we were beaten by a better team and almost by technology a little bit.
"I don't want to cause more controversy or anything like that and I'm not here to make excuses, but there's a lot of grey areas nowadays in that area of the game."
'The referee took the right decision'
On the decision to award Griezmann a penalty, Ryan said: "I thought I saw a little deviation as he's gone to ground, meaning that [Risdon] touched the ball and it was play on.
"I think the referee took the right decision, then we played on and he obviously made the decision to go and check it and I was pretty sure from what I'd seen that it wasn't going to be [a penalty] but it was given.
"Speaking to Josh afterwards he said he touched the ball himself, and I don't think he's a liar or anything like that. On the replays I have seen it didn't look conclusive.
"You hear that technology was brought in to take out clear-cut errors and all this in the game but that's the grey area: What's a clear-cut error and what's not? What's conclusive and what's not?
"I'm looking for a better explanation of it but I don't want to take anything away from the game and the beautiful game that it is and what we've done today."
'A bit of a grey area'
Risdon, who plays for Western Sydney Wanderers in the A-League, did not expect the penalty to be given.
"I was pretty confident, to be fair," he said. "I knew I had clipped the ball and I thought that was going to be enough but obviously it wasn't.
"I haven't really seen the replays but I think he clipped my trailing leg. But there's not much we can do about it, just focus on the positives."
"I don't think that it was a clear-cut wrong decision, so it seems to be a bit of a grey area there but we can't do much about it now."
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