"Hard to know. There's only so many knocks you can take and this is another bitter body blow."

John Maughan delivers the words softly.

This is a sorrowful day for the manager. Such moments have been visited upon him before and again he stands here facing us, eloquent and dignified as he contemplates another day of ghosts for Mayo football. Again the core question: where now for Mayo football? There are, perhaps, signs that at last the psychological freight of the past few years might now overwhelm this gallant bunch.

"It's difficult to know how many more knocks they can take because that's the same group that came up here in 1996 to a large extent, which is four years ago, so a lot of them have a bit of mileage up. "But we'll be taking a look at what the future is and I hope they take their time in making the decision and I'll respect what ever one they make. I'll be considering what I'm going to do over the next couple of days," he said.

This was a different sort of loss for Mayo; no freakishness about it, no real self-destruction. Still, as they recall the dreamy opening sequence, ballooning with hope and skill as they ran Cork ragged, they will again have to ponder how and why they lost.

"Hard to rationalise - we looked quite tired out there, which happens, I suppose, when you are being beaten in so many sections," said Maughan.

"But no, we were beaten by a much better team today and I'd say a lot of our guys would put their hands up and say they didn't perform. Early on, I thought we looked good, so for 20 minutes I was quite pleased. But they got their game plan together and I mean, we did all we could. We were beaten in a lot of positions today. It was a question of damage limitation to a large extent."

Pat Fallon looks mournfully at the world from under a moppish fringe.

"Anything we were trying to do didn't come off for us. Things went wrong. You know, we have supporters like that and you can prepare all you like but it's all on the day. And they played better than I've seen them play before."

He laughs as he is reminded that he is one of the old-timers on the team. Veteran of scarring days like this. "I am yeah. But I'm only a young fella though. Did you not know I'm still under-21," he laughs.

Will he be back?

"Well for starters, we'll have to see what happens - the oul fellas mightn't be asked back. But I love playing football, love playing for Mayo. Proudest days of my life are when I tog out for Mayo. So it's hard to say at the moment."

Elsewhere, Liam McHale is delivering similar sentiments with that natural grace of his while James Nallen put some sort of context on another galling day.

"It's still tough, but maybe a semi-final isn't quite as bad as a final. If you're not going to win it all, you might as well pass out at an early stage. "We started out and we were on this rollercoaster, but once things go against you, you start going back into your own ways. And we just lost our way a little bit. We thought that maybe 1999 was meant to be our year, but that sure wasn't the way of it."