Tyrone forward Sean Cavanagh feels the fact that the refereeing team in his team's match against Donegal could have come down harder on some of the off the ball battles which took place.
Donegal came out on top in Ballybofey to knock Tyrone out of the Ulster championship in the opening round, and although Cavanagh believes both sides were guilty, he told Off The Ball that the referees could have stamped out some issues early on.
"It was on both sides. There's no point pointing fingers. There was an awful lot of off the ball stuff going on and I think the fact that the refereeing team maybe didn't deal with some issues early in the game, it allowed players to cross through those boundaries more so than they normally do," said Cavanagh.
Donegal's Patrick McBrearty and Tyrone's Ronan McNamee ©INPHO/Presseye/Lorcan Doherty
"Umpires and linesmen probably weren't pulling things as quickly as they should have been. Things quickly then got heated and more and more happened and by the end of it all, at times things probably over-stepped the mark. But it was both sides and something most players won't complain about.
"Umpires and linesmen, for a long time in my opinion, haven't been making the calls that they could be making because the two guys yesterday on the line were inter-county referees and very well respected referees, so I think in essence you almost have three referees yesterday but the only person I seen making any calls was Joe [McQuillan]. One person can't make those calls at times."
Cavanagh, who also discussed the areas he and his team-mates can improve upon, also feels there is no obvious solution to the issue of sledging and verbals.
"People are sometimes making a big thing out of the verbals and the sledging. I'm not sure how you can fix that. I'm not sure how someone whispering things in your ear, how someone can police that," he said, saying that off the ball pulling of jerseys and body-checks are the things that annoy players more and an area he wants referees to be more active in policing.
He also felt that the tackle which led to his black card during the match was not cynical.
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