THREE DAYS LATER, Liam Rushe is still struggling to figure out where it all went wrong for Dublin.
Their collapse against Kilkenny doesn’t look quite so spectacular when you take events in Brazil this week into consideration but it still hurts.
These are the heroes who brought the Leinster hurling title back to the capital after a 52-year wait. To surrender it in such toothless fashion only salted what was always going to be a raw wound.
“I’ve been asking that question for a few days and I’m no closer to an answer,” Rushe admitted.
“I wouldn’t say it was a gulf in skill or class. We just didn’t look tuned in, a bit shell-shocked, and collectively we forgot how hard-won the title was last year, how hard we fought and battled for it. That’s the basic element of what we were missing on Sunday.”
The tactics, which left Dublin’s forwards isolated and feeding off scraps, have come under scrutiny but Rushe believes it was the execution rather than the strategy that turned Dublin into their own worst enemies.
Defensively they were able to hold their own but firing long balls in on top of small guys “played into their hands,” he admits.
“We went with set-ups that worked for us in the league and previous years. I don’t think it was the formation. I think we looked uncomfortable on the ball.
“We drew lads out of midfield, which we’ve done in the past, and we kept Kilkenny goalless. If you said that to me before the match, I’d have said we’ll win then but they beat us on points.
“So I don’t think it was the formation, I think it was our execution because when you do turn over the ball, you have to make good use of it out the field and we didn’t.
“Then when the ball started going in, it was coming right back out. The quicker it came out, the quicker we launched it in, so it was really our own execution further out the field that cost us.”
The final ball had only just been pucked on Sunday when Anthony Daly sat down for his press conference, insisting that his men have the character to stand up and be counted when they return for their quarter-final at the end of the month.
Their summer isn’t over; it has just taken a little detour. And as Rushe counts the personal cost of Sunday, his words echo his manager’s.
“We are still in it. I think we need to hold on to that hurt from Sunday and definitely use it as motivation. Wounded pride, almost. We never got going.
“It’s not exactly a massive crowd we get. It’s more your friends and your family who come in… we let them all down.
“And the other panel members who didn’t get a crack at it, they’re probably itching to give a better account of themselves than we did of ourselves. I think we owe it to them to give a better account of ourselves the next day.”
