The Republic of Ireland has developed an unwanted habit of taking 2-0 leads in significant games only to be unable to hold on for victory.
The Czech Republic reached the World Cup last summer after recovering from two Irish goals in Prague, and now Austria under the guidance of their 68 year old manager Ralf Rangnick.
“Happy to be two-nil up at half-time,” Hallgrímsson said. “Austria is a high-energy team. We lost organisation due to tiredness and you start to do mistakes.
“We are obviously not happy. First half good. Organisation was good. I expected us to run out of gas, but maybe not so quickly.
“This week has not only been difficult physically, but it has been mentally difficult as well.
“Yes, we are sulking, to give up 2-0, but Austria came strong in the second half and we weren’t able to cope with it.
“We knew about fatigue in the team. We only got one point but we should be really happy with the players who played and fought until he end. We knew this was a difficult window, our games and a lot of travelling, plus everything else.”
Hallgrímsson admitted he did not know how the Aviva crowd would react to Ireland playing Israel last Sunday in Hungary.
“I never ever want to concede two goals. But everything else, especially the fans, we didn’t know what to expect, it is appreciated. The love they showed the guys, we are very happy with that.”
Did protests disrupt their game? “No, actually I think it kind of helped us. In a good moment we could have a breather and some drinks. You are never happy with this [protests], but understand it and respect it,” Hallgrímsson said.
On Parrott’s first goal, only Hallgrímsson could speak about the Real Betis striker’s wonder strike after 11 minutes as the Ireland players will not do any media for the remainder of this camp.
“I haven’t seen my team score a goal like this,” said the Ireland manager. “It was absolutely brilliant. He has been fantastic for the last two years. He is flying at the minute. We don’t want him to get injured, he is an important player for us.
“We will look at that goal for many years to come.”
Rangnick concurred: “It was a brilliant goal, but we could have done better.”
“We are still three points ahead of Ireland, so I think we can be very happy with it, especially coming from 2-0 behind. We could have won it. We can be satisfied with the point.
“It was more psychological in the first-half, Ireland came at us with more physicality.”
“Parrott was man of the match when he was on the pitch. He was involved in everything they created. For 50-60 minutes Ireland did extremely well physically and tactically. In the last 30 minutes we were the better team and we could have won the game.
“Overall, the 2-2 result is, at least for us, okay.”
Rangnick laughed, and immediately reverted to German, when asked to speak about the Manchester City scandal that has gripped the Premier League.
“A very interesting question. How does punishment fit the crime? It is a big crime they have committed there. Clubs like West Ham and Everton were punished for lesser offences. So we will see.”