Damien Duff was left searching for positives after what he described as a "horrendous result", losing the Extra.ie FAI Cup final 4-0 to Derry City at the Aviva Stadium.
The Shelbourne manager admitted that his players failed to perform to their optimum on the big day, as they were effectively outclassed by a top-quality Derry side who scored twice in each half to record the comprehensive victory.
Yet the former Ireland international vowed to walk out of Lansdowne Road with his head held high following a positive season for his side, who had returned to the top tier of Irish football in 2022.
"On paper, you could say it's a humiliating result, but I walked into this stadium immensely proud today, and I’ll leave immensely proud," said Duff, speaking at the post match press conference.
"The lads have been fantastic all year, but we haven’t given our best performance today. That’s always going to be your fear.
"It’s a young team with not a lot of big-game experience. That was always the worry at the back of your mind and it’s ended up being true.
"We haven’t given a top, top performance. I could just feel a flatness, maybe the emotion of the game got to us and they capitalised on that, as simple as that.
"At the end of the day, sometimes it comes down to that bit of quality. They have that experience in abundance, they’ve top players in the league for many years. We know they’ve proper superstars, League of Ireland superstars, in their team."
Duff admitted that he had difficult decisions to make in relation to picking his starting eleven, eventually opting to name Shane Farrell from the start of the game, despite the fact that he was struggling to be fully fit in the lead up to the finale.
However, the Shelbourne manager said that despite the fact that Farrell had to be withdrawn at half-time, he had no regrets with his decision to start the midfielder.
"Absolutely, but that’s football management," said Duff, when asked on the matter. "Speaking in hindsight, I still would have picked the same team."
Duff did admit that he was disappointed that his side did not play to the level that they are capable of, knowing that it would have taken a complete performance to beat the side that finished in second place in the league table, 25 points clear of Shelbourne.
"The one regret, I guess, today is that maybe quite a few of us will go home, look ourselves in the mirror and ask 'have we given the best version of ourselves?’ and the answer is ‘no’. We knew we had to, to win the cup, and I don’t think we did.
"I mean as in producing their best footballing performance. Attitude, hunger, desire, I could never fault them. But have we given the perfect game? We certainly haven’t, and they capitalised on it. We knew they were going to keep the ball. They were deserved winners."
Derry proved relentless in the season-ending showpiece, taking the lead after 18 minutes with a clinical finish by Jamie McGonigle, before Cameron McJannet started and finished a move in the 35th minute to put the Candystripes in control at the break.
And Duff said that his role at half-time was to ensure that the players did not feel sorry for themselves going back out onto the pitch and to remind his side that they had competed with Derry throughout the season, beating them and drawing at the Brandywell.
"More or less along the lines of 'it's not a time to feel sorry for ourselves here’," said Duff, when asked what he said to his charges at the break.
"Sometimes you don’t even need to speak, you can look at guys and their body language and they’re down and you can’t go back out at Lansdowne Road feeling sorry for yourselves.
"You can talk about tactics all day long. Our lads know how to play, the way we play, inside-out. We had to go out, if we could, standing taller, puffing our chest out. Listen it wasn’t meant to be, we’ll go again."
And while Duff admitted that the better team won the cup, there was a sense of disappointment that his side did not compete better throughout, which resulted in the comprehensive defeat.
The manager expects his squad to learn from the experience and come back better players as a result of the very difficult day at the office.
"We gave away poor goals, that’s a collective, it’s not the staff and them," said Duff. "The goals you could argue were all things we talked about and touched on on the training pitch during the week, but I guess it’s about doing it under the lights at the stadium.
"Like I said to the guys after the game there sometimes you grow more as a person and learn more about yourself on the difficult days.
"In a strange way, I enjoyed difficult times as a player because I knew I would come back better and stronger. That’s what we can take out of it."
And despite the chastening experience at the Lansdowne Road arena, Duff took time to reflect on a season that will feature far more positives than negatives as the "dormant" Shelbourne were awoken from their recent slumber in the lower leagues.
"Absolutely," said Duff, when asked about it being a positive season overall. "It’s the showpiece of Irish football. You could argue you’ve the eyes of Europe, the world, scouts come in from all over to watch this game and Shelbourne were part of it.
"We’ve been dormant for many, many years and we were in the FAI Cup final today. OK, we lost but it’s been an absolutely amazing year for the club.
"I said pre-match, a couple of minutes before we went out, this was the proudest day of my life, but it’s not the hardest day. 4-0 on paper, a horrendous result but I’ve had more difficult days, a lot more difficult days.
"I walked in 10-foot tall, trust me, at Lansdowne today, and I’ll walk out 10-foot tall."
