Conor Hayes directed a small posse from the Fourth Estate into the glorious sunshine to reflect on what might have been. Considering the heavy heads gingerly moving through the lobby of the Citywest hotel yesterday morning, the fresh air was a welcome relief from the inner anguish.

The Galway hurling manager, whose term ended at 5pm on Sunday evening, has seen all this before but has also been around on Mondays when Liam MacCarthy was with them on the train home.

This is a very young Galway team so if Hayes decides to stay on - and the club delegates offer him another term - he will probably relive the winning experience in the coming years.

These young hurlers now know what to expect from an All-Ireland final.

"You just can't impart that kind of knowledge to them but, you know, they found it out for themselves yesterday and I thought they stood up well to it," he observed. "They have learned hugely from that as well.

"This is probably worth about 10 games to them when it comes to it and hopefully, they will experience (it) again and next time be a bit more prepared for it."

Next time. So this lot will bounce back?

"Ah, I think they can. They are a young team. They were in good form last night, as the night wore on. Sometimes we get a bit down on ourselves over it but at the same time they realised they didn't let anybody down. They didn't let themselves down. They brought Galway hurling forward an awful lot this year really, left it in a position where we can see ourselves winning an All-Ireland where we couldn't this time last year."

It has taken three years for Hayes to field a team which justified the huge talent supplied by the underage ranks in the county. The two-time All-Ireland winning captain did admit to being attracted by the prospect of seeing this team come to full bloom.

"I will have to sit down over the next few weeks and maybe make a decision by the end of September. I know the lads are there and are anxious for the whole thing to stay together if it could happen. We'll just have to see. There is certainly an All-Ireland in these lads and I'd like to be part of it.

"That's the advantage Cork had this year. I know they changed their manager but they kept continuity with John Allen coming through from Donal O'Grady's regime. That was a big factor for them."

On the game itself, Hayes felt Cork's decision to revert to a more traditional direct hurling style didn't unduly hinder Galway's game plan.

"Ah not really, I saw them against Clare and they did do that. We were expecting maybe the short game from them at times but the long game worked out well for them. It got the ball down into their danger area where Brian Corcoran, in fairness to him, played well. Ben O'Connor, as well, did well.

"The midfield was one of their strong points. When their midfielders were dominating they were getting scores. When we were dominating we weren't really getting scores. We shot a couple of bad wides. Hit the ball into the goalie and things like that.

"We just didn't get the breaks either. I mean Alan Kerins had a shot on goal, Donal Óg blocked it and it came out to a Corkman. Whereas against Kilkenny, Damien Hayes got a shot on goal and it came out to Ger Farragher."

One thing that cannot be denied is the county that have been the most handicapped by a lack of stern competition flourished thanks to the qualifiers.