‘I’m just so proud of those lads’

It was tough for Waterford manager Michael Ryan and his players after this season-ending loss to walk the tunnel in the bowels of the Kinnane Stand and carry out his various media duties, his stomach churning.

As his players had done on the pitch though, so Michael did afterwards and fronted up, but when he finally came to stand before the print hacks, that emotion was beginning to show. A little, just a little.

“Absolutely gutted,” he said. “We genuinely believed we were going to win. We had no doubt about it. We prepared very, very well. We weren’t worried about who we were playing against.