Preston North End boss Alan Irvine felt that the 1-1 draw was a game that either side could have won, but was happy with the way his side battled back to settle for a point at Bloomfield Road.
In a match which had an amazing 39 strikes on goal, it was a little surprising that the scoreline remained at 1-1 but Irvine paid tribute to how his players fought their way back after such an early set-back.
"Both teams had chances to win the game but neither team took them," Irvine told PNE Player after the match.
"Obviously we got off to the worst possible start, and credit to the lads, they were resiliant. We stood up to a bit of an onslaught on the back of that, and gradually started to get back into the game. I felt much more comfortable in the second half than the first half. There were a few things we talked about at half time that I felt the lads did a lot better. We maybe had the best chance of the second half.
"We bounced back from what was a really bad start and that says a lot for the players' mentality. It is a very difficult place to come now, Ian has done a smashing job with them, he's had a bit of money and he has used that money really wisely. They have got a lot of good players in a system that works very well."
North End had Ross Wallace to thank for a share of the spoils. The diminutive Scotsman returned to action with a trademark free-kick in what was an eventful night for the winger, he was booked for his goal celebration before retiring to the bench with cramp.
Irvine said: "I got asked before the game what Ross brings to us and he probably summed it up in a nutshell. If we take celebrations out of the game then we are taking a great deal of the fun out of the game, I would be very interested to see what the Blackpool celebration was in comparison. I don't think there was an awful lot of difference in that."
The game was end-to-end in the opening 45 minutes but Irvine admitted that a few words of advice at the break tightened things up a little more in the second half.
"There was a few things we needed to sort out at half-time. We were giving away some unnecassary free-kicks and we were a little bit slow in getting set up and that's not like us, we are usually good at all of that. Perhaps the disruption of Liam going out of the team didn't help us as far as that was concerned, perhaps the change of formation didn't help us.
"I also felt that we lacked a little bit of composure on the ball at times, our passing needed to be a little bit better and there were a couple of positional things that had to be changed, for players who were unused to the formation. There was quite a bit of work to do at half-time and I think it worked fairly well."
The Lilywhites suffered a late blow when centre-half Liam Chilvers was ruled out of contention with a virus. Chilvers was expected to replace the injured Youl Mawene but Eddie Nolan stepped in and did superbly in his favoured centre-back role.
"I got a phone call this morning to say that Liam was ill, we were checking on him this morning." Irvine said of Chilvers' absence.
"He went out for a jog and felt dizzy and as if he had no energy whatsoever. So we lost someone completely unexpectedly.
"Eddie did do very well, he was a centre half as a young player, and you wonder whether he's big enough for the Championship, which requires different qualities, he's perhaps good enough to be a Premiership centre half. He did very well in the game and we're delighted."
North End now face another tricky away test when they visit Cardiff City's new stadium on Saturday but the Preston boss is confident with his side's performances promising plenty.
"We know that that will be a very difficult game, there is absolutely no question about that and we knew that we are on a run of very difficult games just now. I think we played well against Newcastle and we have played well again tonight to deserve something out of the game. We should have got something out of the Newcastle game and we now need to take the same kind of level of performance in the game against Cardiff."
