Gavin Cummiskeyfinds the losing dressingroom refreshingly lighthearted

Mark Foley was making his way back to the dressingroom after watching Henry Shefflin deliver an eloquent acceptance speech. Nobody had the nerve to bother him.

He glanced up at the sullen faces. "Don't look so sad lads."

Stephen Lucey appeared in his slipstream with a smile, "Where's the hearse?"

It's easy to develop admiration for this Limerick team. Their attitude is refreshing, their characters entertaining, their hurling occasionally magnificent. The only thing lacking is the abundance of quality that currently resides in Kilkenny.

"We were always encouraged," said midfielder Donal O'Grady. "This is one of the strong points of the team. We fight to the death and even with two minutes to go we were still fighting, but things didn't go our way.

When did he think the game was up? "As a player you never try to think that. The one thing about Kilkenny, if we had kept them to points we thought we could stay in the game because we know there are goals in our team. We only got the one today."

Richie Bennis was a star on the 1973 Limerick team, when they last captured the All-Ireland. As manager this year he has consistently supplied the media with honest and, at times, hilarious reactions. The humour was understandably absent yesterday, but he still spoke with pride for a team that came from nowhere to contest the All-Ireland and Munster finals.

"We wanted the start that they got or at least them not getting the start that they got. All in all we missed a share of chances, but the better team won by a long shot. When we came to within six points we were hurling within ourselves and there was a pride coming back again. Every time we got a score they were able to go up and get a score easier than we got."

Next year, Richie? "Ah, they'll all be there next year. This is a young team. They think there is more in them and we know there is more in them. They will drown their sorrows tonight and tomorrow they'll come back and start thinking of next year again. (But) it's a long, long journey."

Gary Kirby is a nephew of Bennis and, as team coach, considered a key cog in the Limerick set-up. "We lost the match in the first 10 minutes. There is no question about it. We had set out our stall of what we wanted to do. Our main objective was not to concede goals. The two goals killed us. I think it was 2-3 or 2-4 before we even got our first point. We had a mountain to climb. You can't give a team like Kilkenny that kind of start. At the end of the day, we were beaten by a much better team."

Donie Ryan was pulled from corner forward out the field, but Michael Kavanagh choose not to follow, leaving three Kilkenny defenders covering the remaining inside forwards Andrew O'Shaughnessy and Brian Begley. "We had to try something because, ifairness, it wasn't going right for us," said Kirby.

"When he did come out we got a ball in and got a goal from it. We were hoping we would take it from there, but Kilkenny came down tapped one over, tapped two over and all of a sudden from five points it was back up to eight again. We never seemed to get below the five points. That's the story of the day really, we were chasing and chasing, but we just couldn't get down to the one goal."

Do you expect the same management team to come back next year? "I would hope so. I see no reason why they would change it."

Finally, consistency in Limerick hurling has been attained. Richie was right, it's a long road to September, but at least they now own a road map.