Derry manager Ciaran Meenagh acknowledged that their two point semi-final loss to Kerry was a missed opportunity but stressed the need for 'perspective' given how far the county had travelled in four years.
In contrast to their limp exit against Galway at the same stage last year, the Ulster champions delivered a blistering performance for much of Sunday's semi against Kerry, leading by two points until a late surge from the champions settled the game.
"The dressing room is in a state of shock, including myself," Meenagh told reporters afterwards.
"It is a hugely disappointing changing room, I spoke to the lads for a couple of minutes but there is not an awful lot that can be said.
"The overriding feeling is that they did themselves proud and Derry proud for so long. But ultimately we did not do enough to get across the line."
While the punters had cooled on Derry following their laboured and unimpressive victory over Cork, with many observing predicting an eyesore of a game, Meenagh was determined to attack Kerry from the beginning.
"We came here to win this game," the Derry boss said afterwards. "There has been a lot of punditry and a lot of commentary about our style of play. And a lot of that is fair.
"But that also created a lot of opportunity for us because Kerry might have looked (at it) like that as well.
"We decided we would really go for it.
"Look, our style of play was the same in terms of how we defended. [But] we looked to play with urgency and intensity and when those openings came for the players, we were intent on going for it.
"We were very confident coming into the game, we felt we were going to win it, we thought we had the tools.
"We felt we had the players to take out a lot of their key threats and to contain
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