Daly puts bright side out but defeat leaves Dublin bruised

Anthony Daly took in the stony faces clutching microphones and, unlike most of his buddies in the bainisteoirs’ club who would have braced for combat, defused the tension as only he can.

“The nearest thing to what James Connolly must have faced, this craic,” said the Dublin manager by way of hello to the media scrum.

The gambit worked but, as the room relaxed, the wide smile on his face couldn’t mask the hurt of his side’s comprehensive beating at the hands of Kilkenny.