Only after stripping away at the various layers of regret does Anthony Daly reveal the most lasting one. He’ll live with losing an All-Ireland semi-final, as cutting as it is, knowing his team, down a man for the last 20 minutes, couldn’t have done anything more than he asked of them.

He’ll live too with the bitter memory of losing that man, Ryan O’Dwyer, the turning point of the game, or because that’s what people will say anyway, and yet it’s so typically selfless and honest of the Dublin manager to be wondering how his players will live with it.

“Because the All-Ireland is a special day,” he says. “I’d loved the lads to have experienced it. And it would have done another whole pile for Dublin hurling, to get into that day, as well.”

Because, after reeling in the years all summer – a first Leinster title since 1961, a first championship win over Kilkenny in 71 years – they seemed so perfectly up to the task of beating Cork in the championship for the first time in 86 years.

Daly is reflecting on this with both arms resting on the long, wooden table of the interview room, looking not so much like a beaten man but simply a broken-hearted one.

He tries to balance the highs of the summer with the deep low he’s feeling now, and it doesn’t require any imagination to realise the same thing is happening down the corridor, in the Dublin dressing room.

“It was a great Leinster championship to win, no doubt about that.

“But we’re just disappointed now, because, you know, we mightn’t have gotten a win. But I thought we might have sneaked a draw, might have got back here next Saturday night or whatever. Any time that you get to the semi-final and are a point down, in the 66th minute, you feel it’s a chance lost.

“We were finishing as strong as Cork. There was only a point in it, with the goal came. It was a ball we had, too, to drop into our danger area maybe. Who’s to say if we got level, if we won a puck out? You know, what if? But sure it’s all hindsight now anyway.”

If O’Dwyer’s sending-off turned the game in Cork’s favour, Patrick Horgan’s 66th minute goal ended it for Dublin. It wasn’t O’Dwyer’s second yellow card which upsets Daly nearly as much as the first: “The second one was a free and a yellow. I think Ryan would admit that straight away.

“But the referee put himself under pressure with the first yellow. I don’t know. Why? Did anyone think Cork and Dublin would be dirty or something? No great rivalry. No great history. I don’t know. He just reacted. Would somebody else have got the yellow? I don’t know. I can’t talk for James Owens (the match referee). I can just say how disappointed we are.”

It’s the sort of stinging decision that will forever haunt this result, and explains why Daly appears infinitely more disappointed to have list this compared to Dublin’s semi-final defeat to Tipperary in 2011.

“That day we came in the back of a good beating in the Leinster final, and winning against Limerick. But I think we expected we might win today, were very hopeful that we might get the result. So that day, wherever we were, we were still very proud of the boys. We lost by four that day, and today we lost by five. But I think there was real anticipation in the camp that we could drive on this day, and win an All-Ireland.

“Now we didn’t focus on that. We focused on getting a big performance today. I think we did get that big performance, and we’re very proud of the boys. It didn’t go everybody’s way, but that’s the story with every big game. Some lads have a great day. But a good few things worked for us as well. We targeted getting fast ball into the inside line. When we did do it, I thought the three boys had them in big trouble inside. But I thought we didn’t do enough of it. We took a few mad shots.

“Sure look it, it’s easy to talk about it from the sideline. Fellas outside in the heat of the battle. It’s hard going. You’ve an instant, a milligram of an instant, to make a decision.”

Speaking about decisions, Daly clearly won’t be rushing the next big one – and whether or not he’ll remain on for 2014.

“Ah look we’ll go away and talk about it. It wasn’t as simple, last year, as the boys saying ‘ stay on for the year’. We looked at it in every way. It won’t be that simple here either. But this is never the time to make a decision. Lets see the way things are in the next few weeks.”