Mark McGhee is hoping for a more "tolerant" referee for their Clydesdale Bank Premier League game against St Johnstone after the performance of match official Steven Nicholls dominated last week's defeat at Hibernian.

Nicholls' display proved to be the biggest talking point of the day when he showed red cards to Maurice Ross and Chris Maguire and cautioned six other players as the Dons ended the match with nine men.

McGhee admits the referee did stick to the letter of the law but has called for more common sense in future, with Euan Norris set to take control of their match with Saints on Saturday.

"I think the referee was entitled within the rules to interpret all the bookings the way he did," he said.

"Technically speaking, all of them could have been bookings and therefore he was entitled to send players off.

"What I would hope was that referees would look at it slightly differently and would be less inclined to book for such trivial and petty challenges.

"I hope for a more tolerant kind of referee, that's what I would hope for."

The Scottish Football Association have written to the club seeking an explanation after fierce criticism of Nicholls appeared on the official website in an unattributed article entitled 'Is common sense too much to hope for?'

McGhee added: "I've not read what was on the website, I've heard bits of it, and I'm not even sure who it has been attributed to yet.

"So there is an anonymous person at this football club who has made comments that have upset the authorities.

"There are guidelines which I think we are entitled to respect and if we've gone out of those guidelines - whoever the mystery man is - then we've obviously got something to answer.

"But I think the gist of what we were saying is that we are just looking for a bit of common sense."

Despite losing two late goals against Hibs to return from Easter Road empty-handed, McGhee saw plenty of positives.

And he believes a huddle performed by the players was backed up by the belief they showed against the SPL high-fliers.

"Things have to be genuine," said McGhee.

"On Saturday, there was a sense in the dressing room that they were really going out there to beat Hibs.

"They had their huddle and I thought that was brilliant. They had to live up to the huddle.

"Huddles are dangerous things because you have to live up to them or you can be made to look really stupid.

"Had we had a huddle on Saturday and then not showed the sort of spirit that the huddle represented then I think people would have been saying 'so much for them having a huddle'.

"Instead of that, the spirit of the huddle was shown on the pitch and particularly in the last half hour.

"They do feel as though in a sense they are battling for the hearts of the fans and they were up for doing the huddle and knew they had to be genuine about it. I think they lived up to it."

Speaking ahead of the visit of Saints, McGhee added "They've found their feet and they believe they can win games now at this level.

"Physically, they are really competing well and they are not going to be messed about by anyone.

"They have one or two players who can cause you a problem and who are good players and we are going to have to be as up for it as we were in that last half hour at Easter Road but start to take our chances."