Ryan McMenamin has denied he bit and eye-gouged Colm Cooper during two famous championship games between Tyrone and Kerry.

The former Tyrone corner back maintains the incidents never took place, despite claims to the contrary. McMenamin was accused of biting 'Gooch' during the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final and eye-gouging the same player during the 2005 All-Ireland final, both of which resulted in Tyrone victories.

On TG4's Laochra Gael programme, which will be broadcast next Tuesday at 8pm, the Irish Examiner report that the Dromore clubman says: "Peter (Canavan) came to me and he says, 'the Gooch is saying it's coming out that he got bit. I was saying, 'I take it they're blaming me'. I've done bad stuff on the field but I don't think I've ever bit a man now. But when Peter told me about it, he said, 'Don't be worrying, there's still a few ones sore down in Kerry that they got beat' so I didn't lose too much sleep over it."

Commenting on the eye injury Cooper received during the 2005 final, McMemamin said: "There was an incident I got blamed for. He went down with his eye. But again I can put my hands up here and I can say 'It had nothing to do with me, that there'.

"I kind of caught myself on, I said to myself: 'You're playing in an All-Ireland final here - this man here (Cooper) is going to take you to the cleaners. I kind of got a lucky break one time.

"He went down in the corner (on the end-line) and I kind of pushed him and I took the ball. Once I got my hands on the ball, I started getting more confident and the game started to ebb in our favour. We started getting back on top."

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