"We were fierce unlucky, weren't we," said Liam Dunne, calling on the black humour which has sustained Wexford hurling on days like this. A rough week for the Wexford manager didn't get any brighter in Nowlan Park.

Confirmation that Dunne had dropped Jack Guiney from the panel for disciplinary reasons did not make for perfect preparation but it is hard to imagine any one player could have significantly altered this result. Kilkenny had too much everywhere.

"The door would be open to Martin Storey today," Dunne said when asked if there was a chance that Guiney might return in the coming weeks.

“You want your best players all the time and the player in question has the potential to be one of the best players in Ireland, let alone Wexford. But you have to treat everyone the same and you have to make decisions and tough calls. I am just hoping that the short-term pain for that player will be a long-term gain for Wexford.”

This result leaves all of Wexford hurling with short-term pain to cope with.

“We expected a lot of ourselves. We felt we were very well prepared. But obviously some things weren’t right. Kilkenny were very good on the day and we had no answer to them. You could see that the players’ heads dropped.

Kilkenny were magnificent at creating space for themselves and their top players were on form today and when they hit the ground running, you are in trouble.”

Ger Aylward stopped on his way back from collecting his first man of the match award. “First championship, yeah,” he confirmed. “It is hard to get in there but thank God I got a chance. It went well and hopefully push on for the next day.”