'The referee was well within his rights to send off those players'
February 07, 2022
Four Tyrone players are shown a red card by referee David Gough. ©INPHO/Philip Magowan.
Colm O'Rourke has commended referee David Gough for taking stern disciplinary action during yesterday's stormy Allianz Football League encounter between Armagh and Tyrone.
In what may well have been a first in the GAA, the Meath match official sent off FIVE players - Tyrone's Michael McKernan, Peter Harte, Padraig Hampsey and Kieran McGeary along with Armagh's Greg McCabe - at once following the late melee which marred the Orchard County's win over the All-Ireland champions.
Speaking on RTÉ's Allianz League Sunday last night, O'Rourke commented: "I don't recall any game that I have ever seen where five red cards were given out at the one time.
"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.
"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."
Tweet"He could have even sent off more"
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) February 6, 2022
Colm O'Rourke and Éamonn Fitzmaurice react to the five red cards - four of those shown to Tyrone players - that were meted out after the melee between Tyrone and Armagh: https://t.co/aHmcyk4jys #rtegaa #AllianzLeagueSunday pic.twitter.com/cFXvXauCMT
