Armagh O'Rourke: Referee could have sent off more in Armagh

Colm O'Rourke says that referee David Gough could have sent off more players in Sunday's Allianz League clash between Armagh and Tyrone.

The Orchard County beat the All-Ireland champions 2-14 to 0-14 to continue their excellent start to their league campaign following last week's victory over Dublin at Croke Park.

One of the big talking points to emerge from the game at the Athletic Grounds was a late melee which saw Gough send off five players - Tyrone's Michael McKernan, Padraig Hampsey, Peter Harte and Kieran McGeary, along with Armagh's Greg McCabe - after consultation with his umpires.

"I don't recall any game that I have ever seen where five red cards were given out at the one time," O'Rourke said on RTÉ's Allianz League Sunday.

"There is a rule in the book about contributing to a melee and, as far as I'm concerned, the referee was perfectly entitled to send off those [players].

"He could have even sent off more. The Tyrone crowd might be sore that he didn't send off more Armagh players because both sets of players were involved.

"For me, the melee is the most unsightly thing that's part of our game at the moment - pulling, dragging, gouging, scraping, elbowing, the odd fist here and there, throwing players on the ground; it's unsightly behaviour.

"We want the game physical; that's not physicality. The pulling and dragging is desperate stuff.

"Gough identified four players, he could have identified far more. If every other referee took a leaf from what David Gough did in the game then we would not have these sort of incidents happening at all.

"If referees took a firm hold of this, and sent players off, it would stop very quickly."

"He could have even sent off more" Colm O'Rourke and Éamonn Fitzmaurice react to the five red