All-Ireland SFC Quarter-final: Winning and losing in sport might not be a matter of life and death, but sometimes a draw feels that way. Only one thought then on the minds of Donegal and Galway footballers yesterday: glad to be alive.

So for another week at least their summer can still breathe. And after a game that had climaxed with such a rapid shift of emotions it is at least some consolation.

"We are lucky to be alive," begins John O'Mahony. The Galway manager still has sweat on his face, and it hadn't all been drawn by the warm sunshine.

"And lucky to be still playing football," he adds. "But we're delighted for that. At stages in the match we looked comfortable. At stages in the match we looked in trouble. Especially towards the end. So fair play to Kevin Walsh for his inspirational point there to keep us in it, for another week at least."

As the clock had wound down though it was only Donegal that looked comfortable. Substitute John Haran had pushed them a point clear with injury time calling, and moments later had seen another chance go spilling out of his hands. More reason then for Brian McEniff to talk about missed opportunities.

"We had the opportunity there to kill the game," he says, "and go up two points there at the end. We didn't take it, and so a draw was probably a fair result on the day. But still I was disappointed there at the end."

McEniff shows no hesitation in defining his key moment of the game - Galway's first-half goal, sweetly finished by Michael Meehan. Conceding that had not just stalled Donegal's hunt for a comfortable lead, but also dulled some of their hunting instincts.

"Well it was a sick goal. We'd spoken about not doing those things, but it's in the Donegal psyche to play pure football all the time. And you can't always do that against a full-forward line like Galway have. They put you under a lot of pressure all the time. That's their forte.

"But the real hammer blow was the way it was conceded. If it was a good goal you can live with it, but to give away a cheap goal like that knocked the spark out of them. We had gone 0-7 to 0-2 up, then let them get a couple of points and the goal. And that was hurtful on the sideline to watch that happen."

While Galway's lead stretched further as the second half commenced, McEniff never doubted his team's ability to launch a response. But then no one in Donegal has more belief in the ability of this team.

"Well I knew they had it in their legs. We'd done a lot of stamina work during the last few weeks, and we knew we could finish a strong team. And if Galway didn't get that far ahead that we could come back.

"Hopefully now they'll be able to build on what they learned out there today, against one of the better teams in the country. The odds favour the likes of Galway for the replay. But maybe we'll think otherwise in Donegal. This team has come on a power from the match they've played here today, but it will be a tough battle again the next day."

Yet talk of the next day seems far from the mind of O'Mahony: "After a game like that it is difficult to analyse it immediately afterwards. If I was up in the stands I might have a better idea. I know a lot of our lads did some good things, and some not so good things. So we'll try to increase the good things, and cut down on the weaker points."

O'Mahony can't be pressed on the areas in most need of repair. While there were no major crashing sounds, Galway always seemed far from the clean burning machine that he has had grace Croke Park so often in recent years.

"Well we'll go behind closed doors now and get that sorted out. But every team has periods of dominance within games. And that's just the way football works. We went four points up, but we didn't kill off the game.

"Maybe in matches in the past we would have got a few extra scores in that period of dominance. And that would have given us the extra cushion. But we didn't do that today. So we'll just have to try to dig deeper the next day.

"But I think any analysis of today would show the huge amount of work that we still have to do. So we'll just get on with it."