Speaking to BBC Northern Ireland, Mickey Harte addressed Tiernan McCann's dive during Saturday's All-Ireland quarter-final between Tyrone and Monaghan.
It was an incident which saw Monaghan centre-forward Darren Hughes sent-off after he ruffled McCann's hair and the Tyrone player hit the ground.
Asked why he felt that Tyrone were being singled out of criticism regarding cynical football and playacting, Harte said that those 'throwing the abuse' should answer that question.
The Tyrone manager went on to defend his player and place a portion of blame with Darren Hughes.
You'd have to ask other people to answer that question because they are the ones that are throwing the abuse at us but I have to say on behalf of Tiernan McCann, I'm saying that if he had the chance again he would have responded differently to what happened to him and we all accept that.
But I don't think he's the first person to ever to overreact to anything and he won't be the last one to ever do it. I think there are plenty of precedents where this has happened before and it hasn't caused the same furore.
Tiernan McCann is a fine young man, a wonderful footballer. He did lots of good things on Saturday in the game that seem to have been overlooked.
I just want to say that he wasn't entirely to blame for all of this. If the player who raised his hand had chosen to do something differently then the outcome would have been different as well. I don't think we can throw all of the blame at Tiernan McCann, even though he himself said that he would have reacted differently if he had the chance again.
That's life, young people make mistakes from time to time.
Harte also referenced an incident involving Sean Cavanagh where he appeared to be struck in the head by a Monaghan player.
Is that a worse thing to do than punch someone in the back of the head? I ask the question, someone else must give me the answer.
