Dalo’s life even more tormenting without torment of management

Throughout his life and his new book Anthony Daly has found himself staring at the ceiling or out at the sea or over his wife’s head trying to fathom what just happened to his team, what did he do wrong, what does he and they do next?

After Dublin were shocked and dumped out of the championship by Antrim in 2010, Daly couldn’t bring himself to go home so he took the turnoff for Galway instead and with a baseball cap pulled over his eyes, booked into a city hotel and “stole away to the bedroom like a convict on the run”.

A day later, driving down by the Clare coast, he was feeling little better. “Walk away from this,” a voice in his head said. “Go back and run your shop and pub, you eejit.”