Hugo Broos' young Bafana side suffered a controversial 1-0 defeat to the Black Stars at the Cape Coast Sports Complex in the final Group G World Cup qualifier.
"It's a dive, and anywhere else on the field, it would have been free-kick to Bafana Bafana.
"Either the referee he's a cheat or is easily conned by the dive, simple as that. It changes the entire game because we have to then adjust to our tactics as we're under pressure.
"Although you can argue he never made another very bad decision after that, he made a lot of small bad decisions which keeps affecting the game.
"They stopped the flow of the game, they just kept interrupting the game.
"It was a really bad decision in a really big game."
Dearnaley added though that Bafana partially has themselves to blame for failing to advance to the next round.
"We were supposed to beat Zimbabwe in that first game," Dearnaley added.
"That was the big difference because if you look at the fixtures and you know you must go to Ghana for the last game to get the results, you know you will be under pressure. It's something you have to expect.
"But overall I think most of us I think we are impressed with the job Hugo Broos did with a lot of youngsters.
"I still think there's room for improvement obviously, and I think we have to believe in the future of that squad.
"So no pressure on the coach, let him do his job.
"I think a lot of people were confused thinking if we won that match we would have gone to the World Cup, but of course, there was another round of matches which means you can get anybody from Egypt, Ivory Coast, Nigeria.
"Also you know that team was maybe not ready for the World Cup, to be honest.
"If you look at the lack of experience really. But it's just not nice to go out that way."