The players are devastated, admits Barry

ON DAYS such as this, you tread reluctantly to the losers’ dressing-room door.

Babs emerges, heads down the corridor to say the traditional few words of congratulation to the opposition, has to battle his way through the celebrating Limerick fans, who have managed to crowd into the narrow confines before a couple of Gardaí get the gates closed, suffer the banter.

When he returns — and most unusually for this plain-spoken and most media-friendly of managers — he has nothing to say, not to us at any rate. Undoubtedly, however, he will have had something to say to his players, and it will surely all have been positive. How could it be otherwise, when they had given their all in what have been three titanic battles with Limerick?