Minutes after watching his Galway team lose to Kilkenny in the Leinster hurling final, Shane O'Neill came to face the media.
Galway had squandered what looked a commanding lead in the closing stages and the first-year inter-county manager would have been forgiven for being shell-shocked or angry.
Instead, though admitting his "extreme" disappointment, he calmly dissected events, pointing out that his team had regained the lead after despite conceding two goals in quick succession and that they had performed well for the majority of the game.
That refusal to panic was also in evidence again last weekend when Galway reeled in reigning champions Tipperary to set up today’s All-Ireland semi-final against his native Limerick.
Shane Dowling, recently retired from inter-county hurling, has known O'Neill since the former's days haunting Na Piarsaigh training sessions as a willing ball-boy and then umpire.
He describes his former team-mate and club manager as "an incredibly calm guy".
"On the sideline, rather than being wound up all the time, he maybe just tries to take a step back and think more rather than being caught up in the game.
"He thinks so deep and so long. In terms of the tactical battles and statistics, he's incredibly smart with stuff like that."
It’s hard to comprehend now, in the wake of their sixth Limerick title in 10 years, but it took Na Piarsaigh a long time to become a force in the county.
O'Neill helped the club from the north city suburb of Caherdavin to win their first Limerick junior crown in 1990 and was a county under 21 alongside now Treaty boss John Kiely in '93.
He was picked for the Limerick senior panel following Na Piarsaigh's maiden intermediate triumph in 1994 but, like Kiely, never really nailed down a place in the team.
O'Neill was an unused sub in the All-Ireland final defeats of '94 and 96’ but did get on the scoreboard in the 1997 National League final victory over Galway before his inter-county career came to a close in 2000.
Almost a decade later, a teenage Dowling broke through to the Na Piarsaigh senior team and O’Neill, nearly 20 years his senior, was the old warhorse alongside him in the half-forward line.
"He was a great puck-out option," recalls Dowling. "Our goalie used to launch it down on top of Shane. He would get all the hurleys broken off him and I would run around and pick up the breaks.
"He was class in the air and well able to mind himself."
In 2011, 43 years after their founding, Na Piarsaigh beat Ahane to win their first Limerick senior championship, O'Neill scoring a point from play and Dowling 1-10 (1-08f) in a 2-18 to 0-13 victory.
It got even better as Ballygunner and Crusheen - after a replay - were duly dispatched for a maiden Munster title.
O'Neill finally hung up his hurl after the All-Ireland semi-final defeat to eventual champions Loughgiel Shamrocks the following February.
"He grafted for a long number of years at intermediate level and his target for the main was keeping Na Piarsaigh at senior," says Dowling. "They just didn’t have a team good enough to challenge.
"I’d say he knew there were a lot of good young lads coming through and it definitely made him hang on for a couple of years in the hopes of getting a senior medal out of it.
"I think he just wanted to win one and finished up after that."
Na Piarsaigh were beaten in the semi-final by Kilmallock that year but manager Seán Stack led them to a second Limerick crown and second Munster in 2013, their progress again stopped by the champions (Portumna) in the last four. When Clare man Stack stepped down, O'Neill seemed a natural replacement.
"We had so much respect for him growing up," says Dowling, who had based his free-taking style on his now manager.
"For me, it was an honour to play beside him and when he took over as manager in 2014 he would have been a guy I looked up to and was almost manager in my eyes anyway.
"He's not the type of manager that you would see wound up on game day or anything like that but you can be sure that for the whole week he'll be thinking a lot and looking at a lot of different stuff.
"He was so committed and dedicated. He's the most incredibly organised man."
O'Neill's father Mick had coached Dowling to U14 and minor titles with the club but the son had a distinctly different approach
"For such a giant of a man he's an easily spoken character and it’s rare he would lose it. But when he did, Jesus you would know all about it.
"Micko was the total opposite. He was all roaring and shouting, that was just his way."
O'Neill's first campaign ended in a final defeat, again to Kilmallock. The solicitor, an expert in commercial property transactions and sports law, then made some tweaks to his forensic approach that paid off in style in 2015.
Na Piarsaigh again won out in Limerick, secured a third Munster title (against old friends Ballygunner) and reached their first All-Ireland final with an extra-time win over Oulart the Ballagh of Wexford.
On St Patrick's Day 2016, Na Piarsaigh beat Antrim's Ruairí Óg Cushendall by 11 points to be crowned All-Ireland champions.
"In '14, when he came in, arguably he tried to do too much for players, bent over backwards for them and maybe after that learned to tone it back a small bit," says Dowling. "He would have learned a lot from that in terms in '15 and '16.
Na Piarsaigh failed to progress past the group stages in Limerick in 2016 but came again to win the title in 2017, getting revenge over Kilmallock.
Ballygunner were beaten and Munster secured once more and again they won through to the All-Ireland final.
Na Piarsaigh looked to be on course for a second Tommy Moore Cup but a late goal from Seán Moran earned Cuala extra-time. The game finished level and the Dublin side edged a similarly thrilling replay.
After that defeat, O’Neill, with three young children and a demanding job, took a break from top-level coaching.
But when Micheál Donoghue departed the Galway hot seat last year, amid rumours of tensions with the county board, he was a surprise candidate to become the county’s first 'outside' manager since Ger Loughnane (John McIntyre is at least an honorary Galway man after 40 years in the county).
"When Micheál Donoghue walked away it didn’t seem as if everything was so smooth," notes Dowling. "But you can be sure that for Shane to do that job, he would have had 100 proposals and made sure all the boxes were ticked before he took it.
"When he took the job I knew things were fairly right."
"He might know one or two tricks with the Na Piarsaigh players but everyone knows every player when you're involved at that level"
Dowling doesn't believe that inside knowledge will help O'Neill against his county men today however.
"Every manager that is there now, and all the staff that are with them, know these players inside out.
"He might know one or two tricks with the Na Piarsaigh players but everyone knows every player when you're involved at that level."
As for O'Neill managing against his own county, Dowling recalls that when Shane played his father's native Banner, Mick used to tell his son 'I hope Clare win and you get Man of the Match'.
Dowling echoes that sentiment, declaring "If Limerick don't win the All-Ireland, I would love if Galway did."
We'll have to wait and see if relations between the counties remain as warm by tea-time.
Watch Limerick v Galway live on RTÉ2 from 3.20pm, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 or follow our live blog on RTÉ Sport Online and the RTÉ News app. Highlights on The Sunday Game (9.30pm RTÉ2)
