Manager Irvine praised the strength of his team as they came from behind twice to gain a point at Deepdale. The Lilywhites boss was critical of his side's first half display, but felt that the team had earned the point they gained as they snatched an injury-time equaliser thanks to Billy Jones' second goal of the season.
"It was a point gained today," the gaffer told the gathered press. "The way the game went and the way we played in the first half, it was definitely a point gained.
"We weren't very good in the first half. It was one of those situations where I was waiting for half-time to come, unfortunately it didn't and we contributed quite heavily to the damage that was done. I was disappointed about that because I thought we might just well have got through what was a difficult half for us.
"Second half we were a lot better. We showed fantastic character to come back, not once, but twice.
"We were poor in the first half. Middlesbrough would have contributed to that, but they played at a very good tempo. They passed the ball better than we did, they pressed well and we didn't react to that as well as we need to.
"There were a lot of things I was hoping to get sorted out at half-time and to a large extent we did that because we were a lot better in the second half. We made better decisions on the ball, we passed it better and I was happy with that and most of all I was happy with the character we showed."
The North End chief was particularly unhappy with the defending for the two goals his side conceded: "We had five opportunities to clear the ball at the edge of our box and we conceded a free kick.
"I need to see it again to know what went wrong there, but it wasn't the type of strike I would expect to beat us.
"For the second goal, one of the things we identified in our video work with the players, was they counter-attack very quickly and we didn't cope with that well. We were aware that they had that threat and we really had to do better."
However, the second half reaction was one that turned things round and pleased the boss: "We are a really honest group. Our first goal came from one of our best moves of the game, one of our few good moves. It was a good bit of play down the left hand side, pressure on the ball from the cross that came in and Paul backed it up from what wasn't an easy angle, so I was delighted with that.
"The second one was really pleasing, because it was something we worked on on Friday. It was a great delivery by Ross and a great finish by Billy."
