"It was exciting stuff. First half wasn't so hectic, very ordinary stuff; second half it came to life, very definitely."

That's a bit of an understatement from Brian Cody!

"Every time you play Kilkenny you learn but we're extremely happy to still be in it, though it means nothing if we don't win next weekend."

Anthony Cunningham was proud of the never-say-die spirit shown by his players.

"This is a massive result for us. It's easy to say when you've come out on the right side of it, but we knew we were capable of a performance like that."

Longford always had confidence in their ability according to Jack Sheedy.

"This is the wrong time to be talking about what's going to happen next year. We're just gutted at the way it turned out for us out there."

Derry's fall from grace has raised question marks over the future of manager Brian McIver.

"When I took the job, I would have thought that we were going to be able to get to a Connacht final sooner, but it's taken three years to get there - five in total to get to a Connacht final."

Alan Mulholland is looking forward to his first Connacht SFC final as Galway manager.

"We spoke about it in there, and they want to go into the qualifiers and give it a good rattle."

Down but not out, Sligo manager Pat Flanagan is hoping they can make an impression in the back-door series.

"It's obviously something that's very important in the game and Dublin have set the bar in that. To try and retain your possession is important and most of the scores are coming from kick-outs."

Jim McGuinness highlighted the importance of getting your kick-out strategy right in gaelic football.

"The first goal killed us. But look, it was our own mistakes, we gave the ball away in the middle of the field."

Liam Bradley reckoned Antrim had no one to blame but themselves.

"We got a bit of the dirty petrol out in the first half and you see the difference in the teams in terms of the intensity levels; you could see Clare have played a couple of games and that it was a while since we had an intense game like that."

11 weeks since the end of their league campaign, Eamonn Fitzmaurice hopes the hard-fought win over Clare will stand to his troops ahead of the Munster decider.

"It's fierce disappointing, we were fully convinced we could win this game."

Running the mighty Kerry close was no consolation Banner boss Colm Collins.

"We're on a high. But we know where we are. We're not a Division 4 team by accident. But we're trying to get better."

It's onwards and upwards for Harry Murphy and Wicklow.

"No, you see he's just resigned."

An Offaly official explains why Emmet McDonnell wouldn't be talking to the media following Saturday's defeat in Aughrim.

"Well I'm keen to stay on, though I don't know what the wife would say."

Paul Coggins would relish at fifth year at the helm of London's footballers.

"What people must realise is that there is a lot of Limerick underage players will never play a championship game and we had six or seven fellahs out there today who won for the first time ever with Limerick in a championship scenario and that's a great learning curve for them."

John Brudair says Limerick's three-point qualifier win over London is a massive boost to their young squad.

"I suppose you'd have to credit Aidan Walsh for what he did in the last six-seven minutes, he's kicked very little football and to kick those off his right and left and win the game for us, it's a fair testament to him."

Aidan Walsh's late heroics against Tipperary understandably merited special mention from his manager Brian Cuthbert. Tweet

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