“It was a titanic struggle, with both sides defending in numbers. The game has gone that way. I don’t like it myself as a spectacle but you’ve no other choice but to play it like that.

"I’m so proud of our lads. The effort they put in was second to none, and when you’re involved in a team and they give you everything that they have, you can’t aske for any more than that.

"They did it today, and they died with their boots on. Michael Hurley was superb, I think he got Man of the Match, and in fairness to him he got the points when they needed them. They defended very well, I thought, if you had said to me before the game that we’d keep them to 11 points, I’d have jumped at that. But they kept us to nine and that’s the final story, unfortunately.”

When Barry Cripps put Nemo 0-9 to 0-8 ahead, it seemed that they might once again take Andy Scannell home with them and if that had done so, their defence would have taken the plaudits.

“If you look at their three dangermen, the two Hurley brothers and Jack Cahalane, I though that we did as well as anyone could do against those three lads.

"It’s a big pitch out there and you’re trying to cover a lot of ground with them, but I think that every one of our guys, the lads who started and the lads who came on, I’m exceptionally proud of them.

“I think there was five or six minutes to go at that stage maybe? (When Cripps scored) But they went down and got three points. I suppose we were hunting for the equaliser for the last one. Scores were at a premium.

"I said to our lads before the game that I felt it would be low scoring and we needed to get high percentages. We had a couple of misses, and that’s unfortunate, that’s the way it goes.”