As the ramifications of Tuesday's fracas during and after the Dungannon Clarkes-Errigal Ciarain challenge match sink in, Dungannon coach Art McRory, who led Tyrone to two All-Ireland finals, has described the disciplinary problems within the county as "disastrous for the county team and football in Tyrone".

"Danny Ball (Tyrone manager) is the one I feel sorry for. This can't be helping the performance of the county team. We seem to be in the spotlight all the time. The resultant publicity and media attention is damaging. I can understand how parents looking at this might decide that their children would be better off playing soccer."

Already Peter Canavan, the county's best-known player, has been ruled out of the championship opener against Down with the broken jaw he sustained on Tuesday night playing for Errigal Ciarain. The damage to morale and cohesion within the county has also been immense as a result of the incidents involving Canavan and the alleged showerroom attack on Dungannon's Barry Gormley which saw him hospitalised.

McRory was present at the controversial match but declined to comment on what happened: "If I was to speak about it, I'd leave myself liable to legal action and your newspaper too. He believes that although the controversy sprang from what he termed "moments of madness", the impact of such incidents is profound.

If there was a simplistic solution, I'd give it to you. We've a well-organised county board, an administrative set-up that's second to none, planned fixtures, referees no different to anywhere else - some, excellent, some average and some poor."

Last Tuesday's referee was a member of the Dungannon club because there was a general unavailability of match officials due to a training night for referees in Cookstown.

"There was no blame on the referee. There was no bother in the match up until the end and no complaints about the ref. There was a bit of shoving and pushing and shaping up but it was not all that it was made out to be by rumour.

"I don't expect any lasting damage between the clubs. I've spoken to Ballygawley (Errigal Ciarain) mentors and everyone's at a loss to explain what happened but we're prepared to make joint efforts to rebuild whatever bridges need to be rebuilt. There's plenty of time as we're an intermediate club and they're senior so we won't be meeting competitively for some time."

Frank Rogers, secretary of the Tyrone Games Administration Committee, confirmed that the investigation into the affair promised by county chairman Paul Doris would not be the responsibility of the GAC but a specially convened sub-committee which would act in consultation with the Ulster Council and Croke Park.

"Our committee is responsible for competitions whereas this would be a straightforward matter of a breakdown of discipline," he said.

The controversy is just the latest in a number that have blighted football in the county in recent years: from the league final between Carrickmore and Errigal Ciarain at the end of 1996 to last year's county championship match between Dungannon and Edendork.

"Perhaps if different personalities were involved, it mightn't have reached the papers but there's not any point in saying that there's not a problem in Tyrone," said Rogers. Tyrone have replaced Wicklow as the focus of all these types of incidents. If we knew why, we'd have solved it. Maybe it's the general attitude towards authority - you could come to that conclusion looking in from the outside although I don't believe it myself.

"Maybe it's competition between clubs but there really shouldn't have been any competitive edge to this match which was a challenge between clubs from different divisions."