We find Cyril Lyons at the far end of the Clare dressing room. Louis Mulqueen and himself are trying to console each other.

It's a personal moment that only the men that shared the sweat and toil of the last few months could understand, but we join in anyhow. We remind Lyons that everything Kilkenny hit went over the bar, that DJ was as sharp as he's ever been

"Will you write that in big print tomorrow?," he says, drawing a broad smile. "Ah they did. And how many wides had they?" Three, we remind him.

"Well, that will tell you how well they played. And we finished off with 19 points, which is a very credible score in an All-Ireland final. We were beaten by seven, but I don't know if we were seven points worse a team. It doesn't matter now, anyway."

We remind him, too, that Clare just didn't get too many breaks on the day.

"Sure, it would be easy for me to say that. You have to give credit to Kilkenny. They were brilliant on the day. I still feel we got great performances from our backs. I would say that over the 70 minutes the guys on DJ and Henry Shefflin all played well.

"But often when you're five or six points up the scores come a little easier. And you can try things, and they come off. When you're five or six points down you can be guaranteed they won't come off. But that's taking nothing away from how well Kilkenny played."

Then we remind him that when Clare got the deficit down to three, and seemed to be on a roll, the comeback looked very much on. Lyons thinks a little harder, but still reckons the game was never quite there for Clare's winning.

"We needed to get level. At 1-12 to 0-12 we had a couple of goal chances. They weren't clear-cut chances. It was the nature of the game that they got slim chances of goals and took them.

"Even if we got it to two ... there was also a throw-in given around then, and Shefflin took it and put it over the bar. Four again. A free came after that and it was five again. The game had swung back in their favour."

Out in the corridors under Croke Park, Davy Fitzgerald is waiting to board the Clare bus, and turns for a quick word. He carries eight hurls under his arm. We offer him some consolation, and again he points to Kilkenny's awesome scoring rate.

"In the second half we could have folded but we didn't. We brought it right back to three. But they missed absolutely nothing. I was looking up and everything was going just over the post, or just creeping inside, and it was breaking my heart.

"And DJ's touch was unreal. I wish he'd been hurling all year because he mightn't have been as sharp then. He was on his game, but fair play to him. I've heard him get some stick this year as well, but he doesn't deserve it. He's a good guy, a great player."

Still, Clare didn't do themselves any favours by falling behind so quickly. Fitzgerald raised his head and still talks only positive.

"I thought we started reasonably well. For the first five minutes we were tearing into it. And out of nothing they got the break. I though the shot was going wide. Positive it was.

"Next thing DJ came out of no place again, and hits the ball into the back of the net. That's what he's good at. Plays at left corner forward and comes shooting across from the right."

The second goal, some six minutes before the end, killed off Clare's game, and Fitzgerald's face cringes when we remind him how close he came to saving it.

"I just got the hurl to it. And, typical, it sneaked in off the post. We had a few clear-cut chances ourselves and we didn't finish it off. But I still don't think we're too far off the mark.

"Some clown said it to me there afterwards that was the end of us now. Our younger lads will learn from this. Kilkenny lost two or three All-Irelands there and had to learn from it. We know what it's like to win, they have to know what it's like to lose. We'll come back again stronger."

Last word to one of those younger lads. Tony Griffin was playing in his first All-Ireland and he is sure the experience will stand to him.

"This team is far from gone," he starts. "The players we brought in, like Andrew Quinn and Conor Plunkett, you will hear a lot more of. Even this year has done so much for myself and Tony Carmody.

"Anyone that writes us off, even in our own county, will be very, very mistaken.

"But DJ seemed totally at ease popping the points over. Like when it rains it pours.

"For them everything went well. But we'll live to fight another day."