Tyrone captain Sean Cavanagh has described Sunday's 15-point defeat by Kerry as 'unacceptable' and has apologised to Red Hand supporters.

'Disgrace' and 'embarrassing' were other words that came to the former Footballer of the Year's mind when discussing their performance.

"It's not acceptable," he said to the Irish Independent. "You'd almost need a thesaurus to try and work out negative words to describe it.

"It was a disgrace for anyone standing out there in the second half as a Tyrone footballer. We know we didn't even decide to turn up or decide to even play. I don't know what happened.

"We came out in the second half and we were unbelievably flat. They bossed us about the pitch, bullied us about the pitch. We didn't even put up a whimper of a fight, which was embarrassing.

"Not too many of us have had that happen to them in our club and county careers. I certainly haven't seen too much of it thankfully.

"Mickey Harte's not going to put it right, or Tony Donnelly, or Fergal (McCann - trainer) or Gavin (Devlin) - it's the players ourselves. We'll just have to look deep down and I have no doubt we'll be hurting for the next number of days but luckily this is the league.

"The last time this happened us was in 2012 and we hadn't a chance after it. This time we have a chance and we have to fight back.

"I think Tyrone teams of the past have been good at it and we just have to do it again."

The Moy clubman added: "It's just embarrassing and I feel so sorry for all the good Tyrone supporters who went down there and had to sit and watch after travelling for five and six hours.

"It's certainly not good enough and, as players, we have to take responsibility and apologise for it.

"We weren't putting in challenges, we weren't trying to win break-ball. They were strolling through the centre of our defence and they were first to every ball all over the pitch.

"We didn't even try. In the past you would maybe try and start a bit of a physical battle or something to try and spice things up. That's the most disappointing thing, that we just lay down and just let them waltz through and to be beaten, whatever it was in the second half, it was a cricket score.

"It just doesn't sit well to be honest as players and at the minute we are probably shell-shocked. We have to work out what's going on and fix it very quickly." Tweet

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