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Donegal boss Jim McGuinness said that purposely losing against Tyrone was "not what I was ever thinking" after his understrength team fell to a 0-25 to 0-19 defeat.
Michael Murphy was in the Donegal line-up that took to the field at O'Donnell Park but Mark Curran, Hugh McFadden, Jamie Brennan and Niall O'Donnell were the only starters retained from the win over Derry two weeks ago.
The loss hampers Donegal's chance of reaching the Division One final, but with their Ulster Championship opener against Derry just three weeks away, many speculated that Tir Conaill would benefit from losing against the Red Hands and not playing in the league final.
That accusation was one McGuinness furiously disputed.
"I never want to be in a spot where I'm standing on the sideline in my own county with the mind of not trying to win a game. I never want to be in that spot," he said.
"I don't tend to get involved in that stuff anymore, but I did see a few comments that we were going out there trying not to win.
"I don't know how someone can put pen to paper and write that. They must know my thoughts if they can write that. They have to know what I'm thinking, but that's not what I was ever thinking."
McGuinness said that he was "happy" with the performance in Letterkenny considering wholesale changes were made.
"On the whole, we're very proud of them, they kept working and kept going. Our objective was trying to get as many people as possible to the level before the Derry game, so I thought we produced a lot of big performances," he continued.
"Tyrone asked questions of us, they came here, and they had a lot to play for, but we were very happy with the application. Physically it was a big ask of our boys, but on the football side we did really well."
The loss sees Donegal slip to third place in the table behind Galway and Dublin, with all three sides on eight points.
McGuinness' side face Mayo in Castlebar next weekend, a game McGuinness stressed they want to win even if he conceded that preparations for defending their Ulster title have started.
"We have to now look at the players who played a lot up to this point and not forget about them either. We need to keep them ticking over but we need to now go back and look at what we have for next weekend.
"We're not trying to lose games. We went out to win that match and we'll be doing the same next week, and we'll look at every player and see how we can get them in the best spot for Derry, that's the objective."
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Michael Murphy was in the Donegal line-up that took to the field at O'Donnell Park but Mark Curran, Hugh McFadden, Jamie Brennan and Niall O'Donnell were the only starters retained from the win over Derry two weeks ago.
The loss hampers Donegal's chance of reaching the Division One final, but with their Ulster Championship opener against Derry just three weeks away, many speculated that Tir Conaill would benefit from losing against the Red Hands and not playing in the league final.
That accusation was one McGuinness furiously disputed.
"I never want to be in a spot where I'm standing on the sideline in my own county with the mind of not trying to win a game. I never want to be in that spot," he said.
"I don't tend to get involved in that stuff anymore, but I did see a few comments that we were going out there trying not to win.
"I don't know how someone can put pen to paper and write that. They must know my thoughts if they can write that. They have to know what I'm thinking, but that's not what I was ever thinking."
'We have to get them in the best spot for Derry'
McGuinness said that he was "happy" with the performance in Letterkenny considering wholesale changes were made.
"On the whole, we're very proud of them, they kept working and kept going. Our objective was trying to get as many people as possible to the level before the Derry game, so I thought we produced a lot of big performances," he continued.
"Tyrone asked questions of us, they came here, and they had a lot to play for, but we were very happy with the application. Physically it was a big ask of our boys, but on the football side we did really well."
The loss sees Donegal slip to third place in the table behind Galway and Dublin, with all three sides on eight points.
McGuinness' side face Mayo in Castlebar next weekend, a game McGuinness stressed they want to win even if he conceded that preparations for defending their Ulster title have started.
"We have to now look at the players who played a lot up to this point and not forget about them either. We need to keep them ticking over but we need to now go back and look at what we have for next weekend.
"We're not trying to lose games. We went out to win that match and we'll be doing the same next week, and we'll look at every player and see how we can get them in the best spot for Derry, that's the objective."
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