As the Citywest hotel prepared for Ryder Cup fever, the Mayo team coach was silently departing out the main gate. Two and a half thousand people showed up at the team headquarters on Sunday evening to commiserate. Or remonstrate. Or maybe both.
Anyway, the hangover was in full swing yesterday morning with manager Mickey Moran declining to comment on his future, or anything else. "Give us a rest," smiled Mickey. His sidekick, John Morrison, was also left alone, having commented at length on Sunday evening about the mental capitulation of the Mayo players.
The management trio, which also includes Mayo native Kieran Gallagher, are expected to stay on for another campaign, as that was the initial option when they came together last winter. And yet, a 13-point defeat in an All-Ireland final is a blot on the CV, even one as colourful as Moran's journey through the northwesterly counties of Sligo, Donegal, Derry and Mayo.
The now-retired David Brady is the only Mayo player who can be proud of his performance but bizarrely he admitted yesterday it was his first game at full back. That includes training with Mayo this season. This was not plan B. Ronan McGarrity had been tested as a potential full back but the Brady switch for James Nallen on 11 minutes, with David Heaney moving out to centre back, was a spur-of-the-moment decision.
Nallen has yet to comment on his premature replacement but at 32 - not 29 as stated in Sunday's programme - he is expected to follow Brady into retirement.
Where this Mayo team goes from here is open to conjecture. Heaney (28), Ciarán McDonald (30) and Kevin O'Neill (34) have clocked up over a decade of intercounty mileage. Heaney, McDonald and Nallen have lost three All-Ireland finals to Kerry, Brady and O'Neill were around for the agonising defeat to Meath in the 1996 replayed final.
"For me it was a comeback to the intercounty scene," said O'Neill, "but I was always playing club football (with Dublin's Na Fianna) to a pretty high level so it didn't make any difference to my training regime. It was enjoyable to be back playing in those games, but it's back to the drawing board for next year."
Four final defeats in 10 years. Have any lessons been learned?
"Mayo will come back but we might need a different type of approach to deal with the likes of Kerry. The game has moved on, it's gone a little bit more physical than we anticipated. That will take preparation in itself and it will take Mayo a few years to get that physical type of shape. Football-wise there's no problem, but in the physical stakes we were well beaten."
So did the Dublin victory paper over some cracks, which Kerry were only too keen to expose? "It was a fear that we had. We knew if Kerry had the chances Dublin had they would finish them. It turned out that way, especially in the first half, and we just couldn't afford to give those sort of chances away."
O'Neill, however, did appear to contest Morrison's assertions of being psychologically intimidated by the sight of Kerry on All-Ireland final day.
"The approach we used was all positive reinforcement," explained O'Neill. "There was no negative thoughts. It was all focused on ourselves as a team rather than the opposition. You could write a thesis at this stage about the preparation of Mayo football teams. It will happen at some stage, it's just a matter of when. I really felt this one was different in terms of approach, but you never know until you go into the heat of battle and see what happens in the first 10 or 15 minutes.
"We probably should have calmed the game down and been a bit more physical at the start - that's a regret we have now. The key to everything was winning primary possession and we didn't win it."
