Afterwards, we scuffled around the dressing-rooms and spoke in the hushed tones of a country wake. Guiltily, we panned the face of Waterford manager John Cummins in search of ruined morale. He breathed deeply and looked evenly ahead. When he awoke this morning, we wondered, what did he foresee?

"Well, not that. We hoped to achieve what we did in the first half. In all honesty, our first half was excellent, we competed and we took the odd break. I thought the sending off (of Waterford's George Walsh) was harsh - I'm not saying anything about the ref because with the scoreline it would be stupid."

"But don't let anyone tell you you learn from a defeat like that. You don't. You get disillusioned. Thank God those guys are positive. They have arranged to stay together tonight, to get back together in four weeks and prepare for the B championship. But we are out of our depth at this. We need a round-robin series, if the GAA are serious about promoting the game," he said. Out on the field, Cork manager Larry Tompkins considers the plight of the county his side have just decimated. "I suppose Waterford trained just as hard as us," he shrugs. "I don't know, I spent some time down here with the under-21 teams and we got to three Munster finals. OK, we were beaten twice by Kerry and once by Cork, but those teams went on to win All-Irelands. I wondered today where all those players have gone, because they weren't on the field. Why are they lost?"

"I felt that maybe more could be done to promote football here, it's really all hurling in the county. It's very disappointing for them."

Don Davis explained that the issue of sympathy could never be a factor.

"You have to take all championship matches in the same vein. Any county, if they get ahead, can push you. We just didn't come down here lightly. In fact, I've never seen things been taken so seriously in Cork and I'm delighted to see it coming together.

"Unfortunately, we just had to do what we had to do, we just weren't going to take the foot off the pedal. We are all just playing for places."

Job done, he strolls away from the debris.