Fantastic campaign is no consolation

MARK FOLEY could only articulate his own feelings when he left his distraught team-mates in the Limerick dressing room to face the media.

However, it was clear that his words reflected the general mood when he said it had been ‘gut-wrenching’ to lose the final (in his case for the second time) and that the team’s wonderful campaign was of no real consolation.

“The reality is that it won’t sink in for a day or two. At the moment it’s a just a numb feeling and it’s not a nice feeling,’’ said the Adare defender, who emerged as the team’s outstanding player overall. “You can take positives from it, but All-Ireland final day is all about winners and, unfortunately, we came out on the wrong side. The positives are for later on in the year when we go back and analyse it. The whole focus was on getting a winning performance and it wasn’t good enough.’’