Hegarty looks at the plus side
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Finn Harps manager Paul Hegarty drew upon the positives after his side's much improved second half showing against Shamrock Rovers on Friday.
The Ballybofey team fought back from an uncertain opening and having fallen behind to Padraig Amond's opener on 47 minutes, levelled through Conor Gethins before creating numerous chances late in the game.
"I thought that our second half performance was very good overall," began Hegarty. "We kept the ball well and passed it well and caused Shamrock Rovers a lot of problems. With a wee bit of luck we might have won the game.
"To be fair, we showed a bit of character when we could just as easily have folded. The boys didn't throw in the towel. The response from them was excellent. Shamrock Rovers had one decent chance in the first half and we restricted them after that.
"We gave away a terrible goal and we really have to stop that at this level. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you'll get punished in the Premier Division if you defend like that and we did again tonight."
The Donegal outfit have now played all 11 others in the Premier Division and have reached a stage in the season where they have had enough time to assess the quality of the top-flight. Hegarty though, is hopeful that some of his injured players, whose absence has decimated his squad, are on the road to recovery.
"I said at the start of the season that if we get anything near our strongest team out on the pitch then we are a match for anyone," he continued. "I firmly believe that. Last week, we came quite close to a full strength side against Galway and then this week we lose another two players (James Gallagher and Aaron Labonte). It seems to be the way things are going for us.
"We just cannot get a settled team out and it's causing us major problems. To be fair to the boys who come in though, they're continuing to battle away. We don't have a massive squad, but somewhere along the line the others will return and that will work for us.
"I would like to build on the two draws we've got in the last two games and we're going to Cobh next week and we'll be looking for a result. We'll be going there in a positive frame of mind and there were positives to be taken from tonight. Let's build on that."
