Donegal manager Jim McGuinness says his side's surprise defeat to Down in the Ulster Championship is "a hard one to take", but admits his side were second best in Letterkenny.
McGuinness, who had only lost one provincial championship game across his two spells as Donegal manager before today, saw their bid for a provincial three-in-a-row fall at the quarter-final stage as the Mournemen produced one of the shocks of the championship.
Out-of-sorts for large periods of the game, Donegal pulled back on levels terms midway through the second half, but the Division 3 champions powered for home, with Miceál Rooney claiming two goals late on to seal a six-point victory at O’Donnell Park to set up an Ulster semi-final date with Armagh.
Speaking to RTÉ Sport after the game, McGuinness felt Down took motivation from their underdogs tag and once again showed their ambition in front of the posts.
"A hard one to take," he said. "Down were full value for their victory. They were written off in every single corner of the country over the last seven or 14 days, from what I have seen anyway, but we were also aware of the fact that they kicked 3-21 last year against Galway, their last championship game.
"We should have been ready for that. We weren’t ready for that. We weren’t our normal selves."
Depending on the draw, the 2012 All-Ireland winners will now have to wait four or five weeks before their first All-Ireland opener, where they will have to travel away to one of the provincial finalists.
While captain Michael Langan cried off before the game, Ciarán Moore and Oisin Gallen returned to action after recent lay-offs and feels the lack of gametime may have been a contributing factor to the below-par performance.
"There were fellas coming back in that had missed a good chunk of the league," he said. "That definitely played a part. We looked leggy. We couldn’t get back sometimes off the Donegal kickout.
"There were indicators there that we were not ourselves, but Down came with a plan and a lot of passion because I would say of a lot of things that were said and written. They are full value for their victory."
His Down counterpart Conor Laverty felt the result was just reward for some of the performances delivered since he took over as manager for the 2023 season.
Speaking after the match, Laverty insisted that lowering the colours of a tier one side is another step along the journey.
"Donegal are the best team in the country at the minute," he said. "We knew the task at hand, but we came here with a plan and I think we executed it as well as we could.
"This Down team has been very close over the past few years to a marquee win, and today was that."
Laverty admitted that even when Rooney scored his first goal with five minutes remaining, the fact that Peadar Mogan raised an orange flag for the hosts to reduce the gap to a goal made for a nervy finale.
"We have been in a lot of battles these past four years and that stood to our lads," he said. "They really stood up today whenever the key moments came."
