Derry City manager Tiernan Lynch admitted his side had to dig deep after securing a late win against Sligo Rovers on the opening night of the season.
Strikes from Alex Bannon and Josh Thomas sealed the points for the Candystripes, the winner coming in the 90th minute.
Ultimately, Lynch was pleased with what he saw, particularly in the second half.
"It was a very dominant, probably last 10, 15 minutes of the first half, and that was a very dominant second half," he told RTÉ Sport.
"We had to work very hard to try and to get our goals. We probably had another couple of half chances that we should have been better. should have done better with. But we were expecting that.
"We knew that Sligo were going to make this extremely difficult for us, which they always do, and thankfully we found a way."
Lynch named an unchanged side that started the President's Cup win against Shamrock Rovers, and said that consistency will be key if Derry are to challenge for the title this season.
"It's going to be very hard to keep consistency in this team because there's a big squad there. The big thing about the squad is all about trying to make sure that there's a healthy competition for places," he said.
"There's no egos in the team and we know that if we're fortunate enough to achieve anything this year, it'll be done collectively."
Despite expected title rivals Shamrock Rovers not playing this evening due to a waterlogged pitch, Lynch is not getting carried away after watching his side grind out a win against an impressive Sligo Rovers.
"We just got three points tonight. It was nothing more. It was nothing less," he said.
"There's plenty of talk from the media about what we're going to do and where we're going to go. We concentrate on one game at a time. Today, we found a way to win and we will dust ourselves off now the next couple of days."
For his opposite number, John Russell, it was a frustrating evening as his side surrendered the points after weathering the Derry storm for large periods of the game.
"I'm really disappointed not to come away with something, to be leading for so long, and I thought in the first half, we played really well," he said.
"The message at halftime was to be brave and keep passing the ball and try and get control of it. But unfortunately, we weren't able to."
Russell was forced into a number of changes in the second half, with Cian Kavanagh, Ryan O'Kane and goalscorer Jad Hakiki all withdrawn.
New arrival Maï Traoré didn't feature in the squad, due to issues with his visa, leaving the Bit O'Red boss with no choice but to "shuffle the pack".
"We didn't really have an outlet. Cian had to come out, then we had to get Jad out later on and, you know, you're shuffling the pack. We needed an outlet tonight, unfortunately we didn't need to have that.
"He [Traoré] is with us three weeks and we are still just waiting on that visa to be sorted. I've been told it's going to be done for the Bohs game. But if I had him tonight, it's another body and a quality player.
"We still had enough quality on the pitch to get something tonight. It was just hugely disappointing then not to be able to hold on to at least a point," he added.
