Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke feels that the marginal calls in yesterday evening’s All-Ireland SFC quarter-final against Kerry were “really hard” on his side.

O’Rourke’s men bowed out of the Sam Maguire Cup race after a 2-25 to 0-27 defeat to the Kingdom who saw Armin Heinrich’s goal at the death securing them a return to the last four.

Speaking after his team’s defeat, O’Rourke aired his frustratation at some of the officiating.

"We felt that some of the calls that went against us were really, really harsh," he told BBC Sport NI.

"Maybe it'll look different on the video and we'll look at it but those marginal calls were really hard on us and at one stage the Kerry boys even stopped playing because it seemed so blatant to us.

"So, it was really hard to take in such a tight game that that happened and I'm not here to blame referees or officials or anything else but at the same time to us we seemed to get a very, very hard deal out there. Maybe I'm wrong."

The Red Hands boss added that the team’s spirited performance against the All-Ireland champions was no surprise to him.

"It's probably not that much compensation at this stage as we always expect ourselves to come up and put in a big performance," he stated.

"I thought in fairness in the first half we were a bit off. They won too many kick outs and when you give Kerry possessions they'll usually end up in an attack and, more often than not, they'll score.

"So that was the thing that we had to be better on the second half and just in general I just felt all over the field we had to just show more urgency. We did that and it was just disappointing we didn't get anything out of it."

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