McCarthy praises sterling spirit

ANTHONY DALY wasted no time wrapping a bow around the ground-breaking Dublin hurling season that was destined to end in despair at some point. Just not yet, certainly not in Thurles and especially not against Limerick.

Daly went straight for the plain, old truth. “Beaten on days like this. Knock-out. Quarter-final. It’s low stuff but what can we do? Life goes on. There’s no one dying even though it feels like it at the moment. But sure we’ll get over it,” he said.

“It’s very hard now, 10 minutes after the final whistle. I don’t know what to think now. I haven’t seen the game (for a second time). It’s very hard to put your finger on everything. We made a lot of mistakes in our handling; our first touch and coming onto the ball. Chances to put the ball clean and move it into our forward line; we fumbled a lot of that sort of ball and that’s disappointing.

“Great second-half performance but we probably lost it in the 12 or 13 minutes before half-time. We lost it around the middle and our half-forward line after a great start, they faded out of it.”

“It was never going to be the case that a proud county like Limerick. . . they didn’t want to let Dublin beat them. We just didn’t drive on. Maybe it’s a learning curve. But you can’t be learning all your life.”

Daly’s dejection seemed understandable but his and Dublin’s return in 2010 will be eagerly anticipated now. We left him alone to lick his wounds.

Down the corridor, Justin McCarthy came out of the Limerick dressingroom with a slightly affronted tone in reaction to previous talk of Limerick lacking the tools to make another All-Ireland semi-final.

“There is always a spirit in Limerick hurling and that spirit has been rekindled.

“No matter what sport people are playing you have to have confidence and there is nothing like a bit of success to bring a team on.”

Two months ago wing back Gavin O’Mahony was hospitalised with a fractured skull after being assaulted on a Cork street. Yesterday he caressed over eight marvellous points from placed balls (five frees, a brace of sideline cuts and a 65).

We sought the human interest angle, asking him to take us through the failed Munster campaign to the present. Succinctly, of course.

“We were more disappointed than anyone I think, more than any supporter. We were downhearted after that because we knew we hadn’t performed and we knew we let ourselves down. We didn’t perform in either of those games (against Waterford) and we are not that bad of a team but, in saying that, we have nothing achieved. We are only in an All-Ireland semi-final now and hopefully we can go on and keep the heads down.”

And then a faint smile in responding to the last question.

Nothing new being underdogs, that’s Limerick hurling for you.