Jim McGuinness made no attempt to hide his disappointment as he reflected on a missed opportunity after his Donegal side were edged out 1-14 to 0-15 by Galway in a tense All-Ireland Football semi-final.
Regrets there were a few – notably his side’s poor conversion rate of only five second-half scores from 14 chances after they had accumulated 10 from precisely the same number of opportunities in the first half which left the interval scoreline 1-7 to 0-10.
McGuinness rued Paul Conroy’s fortunate first-half goal as the midfielder’s shot from distance deceived Shaun Patton, who appeared to be unsighted by Matthew Tierney’s presence on the edge of the square.
“A goal in gaelic football at the moment is a big, big score but our reaction to that was absolutely fantastic,” said the Donegal manager at his post-match news conference.
“We had 10 points on the board from that position going in at half-time so in terms of a blow, it wasn’t a psychological blow.”
The Donegal boss made clear that he was irked by a number of calls by referee Brendan Cawley in the tight contest but beyond mentioning the whistler’s decision not to award Ryan McHugh a free in the first minute, didn’t go into specifics.
“There was a number [of decisions] today that we wouldn’t have been happy with…..I don’t really want to go there. It is what it is.”