Rory Gallagher admitted Donegal were simply caught by a "magnificent" sucker punch after Tyrone snatched the Ulster SFC crown on Sunday.
The Red Hands lifted their first Ulster SFC title in six years thanks to late points from Peter Harte, with a superb score, and then Kieran McGeary's insurance point as they prevailed in Clones on a 0-13 to 0-11 scoreline.
A despondent Gallagher couldn't hide his anguish.
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"It's extreme disappointment," he told RTÉ Sport. "To be caught fairly late on with Peter Harte's magnificent point, we weren't able to respond.
"It's hard to take but listen, we're going to have to take it on the chin and move on.
"We'd a bit of a breeze with us (in the first half) and we were able to get the shots away from a wee bit further out.
"Unfortunately we probably needed to be another point or two up but to be fair to Tyrone, in the second half it was difficult to break them down."
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Donegal now face a battle with Cork in Round 4B on the final weekend of July.
The Rebels, who suffered one of the shocks of the summer when beaten by Tipperary in Munster, inflicted a six-point defeat on Longford at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park on Sunday to set up a mouthwatering showdown.
Gallagher was defiant as he looks to keep his side's summer fires burning: "We're still in it. Whether we won or lost we were always going to be still in the All-Ireland series.
"We can't hide the fact that we wanted to bounce into Croke Park as champions but we haven't done that.
"Tyrone have a lot of good players," he added. "They were able to get the scores that bit more freely than us in the second half."