Alan Pardew has refuted claims his Newcastle staff visited the referee's room at half-time of their tempestuous derby against Sunderland.
O'Neill enjoyed derby hostility
Alan Pardew has refuted claims his Newcastle staff visited the referee's room at half-time of their tempestuous derby against Sunderland.
The match finished 1-1 after a late Newcastle equaliser, while Sunderland were reduced to nine men as tempers flared - not least between the two managers.
Lee Cattermole's dismissal was just one of the flashpoints in a feisty affair and sparked some inflammatory words from Martin O'Neill.
The Black Cats boss said: "Possibly in mitigation we had heard that some of their staff had visited the referee's changing room at half-time.
"Of course, we are not party to what was said, but Lee's mitigating circumstance was that he felt a lot of decisions had gone Newcastle's way in the second half."
Untrue
But Pardew, whose goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman was dismissed at half-time after a spat with Sunderland fitness coach Jim Henry, insists those claims are inaccurate.
"I can tell you that's completely untrue," said the Newcastle boss.
"None of our staff was allowed in the referee's room. No-one tried to enter it and no-one entered their dressing room.
"I heard that rumour and it's not right."
It was a game that had everything - one penalty scored, another missed, eight yellow cards, two red cards on the pitch and a third in the tunnel, a last-gasp equaliser and repeated confrontations between the respective benches.
So it is perhaps unsurprising that both managers had their own unique take on events.
Pardew added: "Listen, let's not all get carried away here. This has been a great game of football.
Silly
"What happens on the bench sometimes gets out of hand, silly things are said. It happens all the time and you just get on with it.
"I have never done that before. It just goes to show that the pressure of the game can get to even the oldest of managers like myself. I was feeling like 58 today rather than 50."
While Pardew may have been aged by the experience, his counterpart O'Neill claimed to have revelled in the intensity of the battle.
O'Neill added: "It was everything that people had told me about, everything, absolutely everything.
"Hostility, which I am kind of used to - that's even from my own fans - fervour, everything, everything.
"In a perverse sort of way, I was enjoying it - it had to be really perverse - but there was obviously disappointment at the end."
