James Horan wouldn't be drawn on his Mayo future after his fourth season in charge ended with an eight point loss to Kerry at GAA HQ.
Demolished by Jack O'Connor's side in April's league final, Mayo were rather more resilient in Sunday evening's quarter-final but were still put away in the end with a dispiriting degree of comfort.
For Horan, it's the end of his fourth season in charge, the official end of his second term which, as with the first, yielded a pair of All-Ireland final defeats.
Speaking to reporters after, the Mayo boss reflected on a "raggle-taggle" season but refrained from making any promises about his future.
"There is no real looking forward now, we just had a chat in there, it's never a time to make rash promises or decisions or statements after the end of a season like that, so everybody will take a bit of time.
"Yeah, look it, it has been a tough year. I was just saying out there that if you were designing a year, it would be the absolute inverse of what we had, from no pitches to play leagues into no training pitches to no trainings, we had to cancel trainings, the amount of injuries, it was one of those raggle-taggle kind of seasons but to the credit of the players they kept going and kept battling.
"We were down a lot of games and it would be very easy just for you to call it a night but didn’t, kept going, so huge credit to the lads involved."
Mayo's 2022 campaign was hampered from early by the loss of forward power in the shape of Tommy Conroy and Ryan O'Donoghue, their stuttering performance in front of goal continuing today.
"I think we got four from 16 shots in the second half. I think we'd piles of attacks today, we'd an awful lot of attacks, we just didn't get the return from the possession that we had. I think that's it and they certainly did, so that was the difference.
"I think we'd a couple into the goalies hands at a key time. I think that knocked us a little bit and gave them strength. That was where they got ahead into a comfortable lead and they managed it from there.
"We were probably missing our three highest scorers today that certainly makes a difference in Tommy, Ryan and Darren McHale is our highest returns scorer.
"Michael Plunkett was also a big loss - he was probably our best player throughout the league - so he was a huge loss. We were unfortunate with some of our injuries, that's for sure, but you saw Dublin and Kerry there, so that's the way it goes, I suppose."
"I was just saying out there that if you were designing a year, it would be the absolute inverse of what we had, from no pitches to play leagues into no training pitches to no trainings, we had to cancel trainings, the amount of injuries, it was one of those raggle-taggle kind of seasons."
"I still think we were doing well in the first half, the goal was a slack goal to give away. I thought we were defensively sound, we worked very hard there. But it was a slack goal - it was well finished obviously - but slack from our point of view. I thought we came back well, had a very harsh black card (to O'Shea). We were still in a good position then though."
As to whether today marked the end for a few Mayo stalwarts, Lee Keegan and Kevin McLoughlin, Horan again played straight bat but said it was a matter for the players involved.
"It's hard to know that is for everyone to decide, the way the two guys are playing they still have a huge amount to offer and they are brilliant ambassadors for the game in Mayo so it is completely their decision, they’ll take time.
"Kevin with twins has his hands full out there for sure so he’ll take time to think through it."
