Donegal manager Jim McGuinness was pleased to see his side grind out a draw against Galway on Sunday.
It was a tough outing in Fr Tierney Park and Donegal had to play with 14 men for the bulk of the game.
However, they kept battling and Peadar Mogan’s late two-pointer sealed a draw.
“Good, very good. Obviously there were a lot of mistakes and a lot of handling errors in the first half,” said McGuinness afterwards.
“But taking a step back from it, very happy that we managed to eek out a draw.
“We were down to 14 men twice for forty minutes in total, and six points down in a very physical game, it was brilliant that they found a way to get a point on the board.”
Donegal’s discipline is usually excellent but they had Michael Langan sin-binned in the first half while Stephen McMenamin was sent off after picking up two yellow cards.
McGuinness said: “The two incidents that happened, you can’t defend them.
“Physical games like that the blood is going to be up and all that and those are the ones that you have to hold your discipline and have to the right thing.
“But what I would say was that a lot of it was born out of frustration.
“There were a lot of decisions that were 50-50 and once they’re not going and the blood is going, you can go into an area that you shouldn’t.
“I’m not going to defend that but I think there were a couple of ones there – Michael (Murphy) was fouled in the middle of the park and there was no free-kick, and Michael Langan was taken out of it on a transitional moment going through the middle and there was no decision on that one
“There were a number like that which were frustrating on the sideline and they’re frustrating for the boys but that’s something you have to deal with. You can’t move off track.
“But it was two physical teams going at it and you have to play the element, and to a certain extent you have to play the referee as well.”
