Tom Carr, striding down the corridors after saluting the Westmeath dressing-room, pauses to offer a composed summary.

"We were up by what, eight or nine points at one stage? I know we dropped it a little, but it is a big cushion against a team that most people felt would have been within three points of us. So we are happy that we sustained that. It has taken us a while to start over both games, but I think we have been very keyed up for matches and if we could relax, we might start playing football earlier."

After nervous first steps, Carr's back six proved rock steady. "The back line did very well. Bit shaky early on but once we started to play in front, Paddy (Christie), Shane (Ryan) and Coman (Goggins) came out well. Peadar Andrews was, I felt, near enough man of the match, and Paul Curran seemed to be on the ball the whole time."

One of the talking points for city fans will be the name of five summers ago. Jayo. Not quite a rebirth but a scorching return to form for Jason Sherlock after a drought.

"Oh, you know, he really had scored nothing and I suppose the guy had been written off by a lot of people over the past two or three years. He has really bounced back and deserves to have his place on the team and is making things happen up there."

Three years later and Brendan Lowry finds himself articulating the breakdown of another cruel day. "Didn't work our way. We hit the crossbar a few times and if we were 10 points up, they probably would have gone in. If we were Dublin, they would have gone in."

But for all that, he knows Westmeath weren't at it. "I dunno what it was. We had no problems coming in here - we only played in the last 20 minutes. Today, it was hard to judge Dublin," he sighs.

"We never put them under real pressure. You can't afford to stand back and admire these players. Things just don't fall into place. You have to work twice as hard as Dublin and hope that they play badly. That was a poor performance on our part.

"Maybe if Martin Murtagh's ball had gone in the last 10 minutes, it might have been vital, would have left us just three points down, you know. It was only at that late stage that we began carrying the ball and going by Dublin."

And now, the only relevant question for Lowry. With this three-year term up, which way now? "I won't think about it now, too much work and effort has gone in to make a decision. I had hoped to be preparing for a Leinster final at this point. We'll just have to see what happens."

A middle ground team at yet another crossing point.