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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Darragh Culhane

Colm O'Rourke slams 'unsightly behaviour' after Armagh v Tyrone melee

Colm O'Rourke slammed Armagh and Tyrone for their "unsightly behaviour" after an ugly brawl to end their National League clash.

The All-Ireland champions were subjected to their first loss of the season as they lost out 2-14 to 0-14 at the Athletic Grounds.

Tyrone showed some form in the second half to try to claw back the lead but their race was run as four of their players were sent off after an ugly melee.

Peter Harte, Padraig Hampsey, Kieran McGeary and Michael McKernan were all given marching orders for Tyrone while Greg McCabe was also sent off.

And O'Rourke blasted the melee and backed referee David Gough's decision.

He said: "I don't recall any game that I've ever seen where five red cards were handed out.

"There is a rule in the book of contributing to a melee and as far as I'm concerned the referee was perfectly within his right to send off those, he could have even sent off more.

"I know that the Tyrone crowd will be sore, why didn't he put off as many Armagh players...I don't know what players were doing in there. No one is claiming they hit anyone but they are still involved in a melee.

"For me it's the most unsightly thing as part of our game at the moment, this pulling, gouging, scraping, elbowing, the odd fist here and there, it's an unsightly behaviour.

"You can see David Gough has a perfect view of it, stands back and seems to know exactly what is happening. He went to his linesman he went to his umpire, he identified four players.

"And I think if every other referee took a lead with what David Gough did then we would not have these sort of incidents happening."

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