Mayo manager James Horan said he was "very encouraged" by his team's comeback and fighting spirit as they overcame a sluggish first half to salvage a draw in their Allianz League opener against Donegal at Markiewicz Park.
The game - ostensibly a home match but relocated to Sligo due to maintenance work on MacHale Park - appeared to have drifted well out of Mayo's reach after a poor first half, in which they fell 0-07 to 0-02 down in a low-scoring encounter.
The gap was still four in the second half when the home side fell to 14 men after Stephen Coen's sending-off and it could have been worse had Robbie Hennelly not repelled Paddy McBrearty's 51st-minute penalty.
However, points in the final ten minutes from Paddy Durcan, Jason Doherty, Ryan O'Donoghue then the afternoon's hero Hennelly rescued a draw.
As in last autumn's semi-final against Dublin, Horan asserted that Mayo's ratcheting up of pressure on the Donegal ball-carriers helped turn the tide.
"We started very tentatively, Donegal built up a strong lead. At half-time, we were four or five points down and we could have been a couple of goals down, Robbie Hennelly did very well for us in the first half," Horan told RTÉ Sport.
"Thankfully, we were in a position where we needed to, and could, drive forward. The guys worked incredibly hard, won a lot of turnovers. That gave us momentum and energy and rattled Donegal a little bit.
"It could have gone either way. Every time they attacked in the second half, they got some good long range points but we were the ones driving forward. We could have snuck it in the end.
"But we'll take a point today but lots of stuff that I'd be very encouraged by.
"The way Donegal were playing, they brought an extra few back and they were running through the lines very well. We didn't know whether to step forward or step back or where to make contact. So, we were in no-man's land for a while. The lads pushed up, put more pressure on the ball carrier and it paid huge dividends for us.
"The guys have immense character. Everything was going wrong. A few decisions I thought could have gone either way. The penalty, going down to 14 men, the breeze but it didn't matter, guys kept going and trying to do the right thing. Increase the pressure on the opposition and it ended up a draw."
Despite surrendering a four-point lead in the closing stages, Donegal manager Declan Bonner was reasonably upbeat afterwards, though he did rue the impact of the elements, acknowledging that the penalty miss was a crucial moment.
"The conditions were terrible out there," he said. "There was a big breeze, underfoot conditions were very slippy. But both teams went at it, there were some really good patches of football. It was good to see a big crowd back. So, listen, a point apiece. We'll take that and move on. Disappointed we didn't get the two naturally enough.
"I think if we got that penalty, we'd have gone six up and it was always going to be difficult to get back from that. But in fairness to Mayo, they came back and stuck at it.
"I thought we played really well in that first half. We started the second half reasonably well, kicked on and got a couple of scores. We found the breeze turned in the second half. It was blowing into the town goal in the first half and all of a sudden it turned here. But listen, we're not blaming the prize, conditions were the same for both teams. But happy to get started."
