Town boss Mick McCarthy praised Brighton following their 3-2 defeat of his side at Portman Road, and also his own team for the spirit of their second half comeback.
"I think Brighton are a good side, I think they played very well,” McCarthy said. "They started well, they were the better side and they got the goal.
"It’s always the same, I’m looking at it thinking we could have defended it better but if we’d scored it I’d think it was a wonderful strike, and it was.
"The second goal was a great delivery, we didn’t get a head on it and it’s one of those that Gerks can’t do anything about.
"So, we’re 2-0 down and they’re playing well. They can keep the ball, we have to chase it.
"First half, I thought they were excellent, so let’s give them credit rather than attack my own team.
"In the second half I thought we started well. I know we got away with it but we were winging it a bit trying to leave three up with Didz almost in a free role.
"I had to, it’s not being tactically clever or being really astute, if you’re 2-0 down really you’ve got to get back in the game, I had to do something and that worked.
"When they hit the post, obviously we got away with that, but I thought it was a great response from my team, it was fantastic.
"It was just disappointing that when the cross comes in [for the third goal] it takes a deflection and it just wrong-foots our lads and I think Tommy’s going to head it except for the deflection. It was one of those days. We know how everybody else feels now.”
He added: "I thought Brighton were very good, let’s try and give somebody else a bit of credit because when we’ve gone away and won away I don’t say ‘Oh, by the way, the opposition were hopeless’.
"I tend to credit my team for playing well or if we’ve had to scrap it out I give my team the credit for it. I think Brighton deserve that because they were on top and they deserved it today.”
He outlined his thinking at the break when he switched Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Josh Emmanuel for David McGoldrick and Piotr Malarczyk: "Well, we didn’t want to go 3-0 down. We had to try and get the ball and play.
"They do it well, they sit back in and they don’t give any space in behind. That’s what they were doing. There was no way we could get up the sides of them.
"I put Didzy on to try and get hold of the ball a bit more, which he did, to be fair, and leave Freddie, Ryan and Brett up the pitch just as an attacking threat.
"It was [a good response]. We made a few little errors prior to their third goal and we just didn’t deal with it.
"Very often it’s the case that it’s not one glaring error it’s tiny little ones. We don’t clear it, we don’t deal with it. Didz came on and helped change it. I thought the substitutions were good.”
He continued: "You don’t see many games like that. They got 2-0 up and they would have liked to have shut the shop up and not concede, but they didn’t, and that was because of our reaction and the spirit of the players, the way they went at it. That was great, a real positive out of the game.”
Regarding referee Keith Hill’s decision not to show Brighton defender Uwe Hünemeier a second yellow card for his very high challenge on Ryan Fraser just before the break, McCarthy said: "I’ll answer that by saying that when I saw that he’d been substituted at half-time, that was of no surprise to me.
"I asked the ref coming on at half-time ‘Do you not think it was a second yellow?’. He said he was going for the ball. I said ‘There were lots of times I went for the ball and missed it and if you kick somebody in the head…’.
"But I’m not bothered, I’m not bemoaning that, not at all. I don’t like seeing players sent off. It’s the rules of the game, I think. But it’s how we perceive it. He’d just booked him and it was one of those amber cards which could come out.
The Town players claimed a penalty when Lewis Dunk appeared to handle the ball prior to the spotkick which was awarded, but McCarthy said he couldn’t comment on the incident: "I don’t know.”
Australian winger Tommy Oar was at Portman Road today and the Town boss says the deal to sign the 23-year-old should go through: "Providing all the paperwork and medical is OK, I don’t know [if it's done] yet.”
Brighton boss Chris Hughton’s only disappointment was his side letting their two-goal lead slip.
"I thought it was a super game, a very good spectacle for the Championship,” he said. "Probably the only disappointment for me was that having gone 2-0 up, when I thought at that stage we were the better team, was for them to draw that back to 2-2, which I didn’t think was a fair reflection of the game.
"I thought we showed great character after that to go on and win the game, and I thought we got the right balance of trying to defend well and breaking very well. I thought we had some good chances."
Hughton admitted that it had been an "emotional week” for the club following the Shoreham air disaster in which Matt Grimstone, a member of their groundstaff, and fellow Worthing United player and Seagulls fan Jacob Schilt were killed.
Brighton’s training ground at Lancing is being used as a control centre for the police investigation into the disaster.
"It’s something that has affected all of us and all of [those who lost their lives] have affected all of us. But the club has done an outstanding job and it’s been our responsibility to try and do the best that we can.
"Certainly I think it’s a wonderful tribute from myself, the players, the club and all the staff to dedicate such a real good win today in particular to Matt and Jacob because they had the closest ties to the club and to all that lost their lives.”