Galway manager Henry Shefflin says his team simply weren't ready for Dublin after a couple of facile wins in the Leinster championship.
The Tribesmen were well off the pace in the opening half of their final round game with the men from the capital, entering the break 10 points in arrears after some defensive lapses cost them dearly.
They rallied after the break and looked set for a comeback victory before Dublin pulled an equaliser out of the bag, securing their place in the championship while Galway advance to a provincial final against Kilkenny.
Speaking after the game, Shefflin says the nature of the previous two games wasn’t ideal preparation.
The Tribesmen racked up 10-62 in dispatching Westmeath and Antrim, but were at sixes and sevens for a lot of the opening 35 minutes.
"We thought our warm-up was very sharp and slick, but maybe it was just too nice. Dublin were very sure and we probably just weren’t ready for the physicality of it," he told RTÉ Sport.
"I always felt that was going to be the case, it was going to be a step-up.
"The last couple of games probably didn’t do us any favours to be honest with you, because we weren’t ready.
"Our lads didn’t respond very well."
Shefflin says that while he would have gladly accepted a draw at the break, the way they thundered back into the game, even allowing for Conor Cooney’s penalty miss, meant they could easily have snuck victory.
"We’re a little bit disappointed we didn’t get over the line and get the victory. It would have been good psychologically to get the victory.
"We probably looked like we were going to win the game from there (after the penalty miss), which was a good sign.
"We know we have an awful lot of work to do. Last year in the Leinster final we didn’t bring a performance.
"What we did in the first half will absolutely not be good enough, and against Kilkenny you won’t get a chance to turn that around."
His Dublin counterpart Michael O’Donoghue said there was a "tinge of disappointment" given their sizeable lead they enjoyed at Croke Park.
"We had put ourselves in a nice position," he said.
"We had to fight rally hard to get a draw out of the game, but we are a young group. They work really hard. They will be the first to recognise that we have to learn from this."
