’We didn’t execute well enough but we battled very hard’

A championship hurling pitch is a frenzied cauldron, one where actions last milliseconds and thoughts can be turned on their heads just as quickly.

The aftermath is little different.

Anthony Daly walked through the halls underneath Semple Stadium’s stands yesterday evening, chaperoned around from the opposing dressing-room to his own and into the hands of broadcasters and writers eager to talk.

It must be head-spinning.

Daly’s words suggested as much. At one point, RTÉ asked him about his future with Dublin after six years at the helm and he responded that “maybe it is time to let someone else at it”. Minutes later he was less definite.

“I’m a good while there now. I don’t know. We would have to give it long, hard thought. I suppose everyone involved in that dressing-room will be thinking about that. You come into a game like today’s and you’re not thinking like that.

“You’re thinking about how we’re going to win the game. That’s the full focus. We won’t make decisions like that now. We’ll take a few weeks now to clear the head and think about things and evaluate the situation and that’s what I’ll do.”

Like he did with his native Clare back in the day, Daly took over a team used to bad days and made them believe in better. He helped deliver a few, too. A league title and a senior provincial title most obviously.

This wasn’t one of them, even if the scoreline was a tad unfair.

“Ah sure, I suppose sometimes it can look that way. What can you do? It is what it is. You get chances to hit the ball over the bar and under the bar and if you take enough of those, your score will be higher. We didn’t do that. Maybe we could have tapped over a few of the frees late on. “We didn’t execute well enough today but we battled very hard today.

“We probably brought a lot of what we didn’t bring in the Leinster final today. Our touch...I don’t know why...but our touch was off. The likes of Tipp will hurt you if that’s the case.”

He left speaking positively about Dublin’s future and the many underage successes banked. And as he walked away he turned and gave us a ‘thanks for everything lads’. It sounded awfully like a goodbye, but who can say?