Anthony Daly: Are we reading too much into 15 minutes last Sunday?

On Monday evening though, a few of the lads in the pub were in agreement with me. By that stage, anger and disappointment had been replaced by introspection and a colder, harder perspective than 24 hours earlier when their blood was a lot warmer

REACH: Sean Finn contests a dropping ball between Clare players David Reidy and Shane O'Donnell

When you work in the pub business and most of your customers are sporting fanatics and great GAA people, the day after the event is invariably the best time to talk real business. There’s always a lot of soft talk on the night of the match that, in reality, there’s no point arguing against. When their team loses, lads are disappointed. They often don’t want to hear what you have to say anyway. They already have their minds made up.

On Sunday night, I was making a case for David Reidy – as I did in this column the following morning – about his substitution. I felt Clare missed his presence around breaking ball when he did go off. One customer was incredulous at my suggestion: “Were you at the match at all? Reidy missed 1-2. He had to be taken off.” In fairness to the man, he was just frustrated – like a lot of people – that Clare could be nine points ahead with a quarter of the match remaining and still lose by three. And against Limerick, of all teams. There was just that numbness and soreness there that a defeat of that magnitude, in that manner, can inflict.