There is no easy or comfortable way of conceding any All-Ireland final defeat, only the honest way. And for Galway manager Micheál Donoghue that begins and ends with the unreserved hailing of Limerick’s superiority.It’s what happens when any team is outscored and outclassed by their opposition, and in Galway’s case, also outnumbered by the end. Their nine-year wait for an All-Ireland title continues, but Limerick were simply unstoppable on the day. Anything and everything Galway tried to put in their way proved in vain.“First and foremost, you have to give them huge credit for their performance,” Donoghue started. “And their consistency of the performance over the 70 minutes. I think we were five down at half-time, and at that stage probably would have taken that, hoping that we would put in a bigger second half.“I suppose when you reflect on Limerick, and the season they had up to today, we were measuring it against lesser performances, if you want to put it that way. Because full credit to them, on the biggest day, they probably gave their best performance in a long time.Galway players dejected against Limerick. Photograph: Bryan Keane/Inpho “I think the level of consistency has been off the charts for them. Obviously, they’re all quality players. They’ve got a quality management in John [Kiely] and Paul [Kinnerk] and the rest of the backroom team. They’re just so driven with quality, full credit to them.“Obviously it’s bitter today, and it’s going to hurt for a few days. I’ve said over the last number of weeks that the younger fellas, in particular, it was important to be exposed to big games and meaningful games. Today was, someone used the phrase there, ‘they learned in the fire today’. It’s a tough one to take, and look, we’ll just soak it up and have to go again.“But I still think for us, we just never got into the pitch of it ourselves, and then with their turnovers we got punished every time.”Galway’s problems were indeed twofold: while Limerick were quickly firing on all cylinders, pedal to the metal, too many of the Galway players were off the pace. Especially compared to their Leinster final over Dublin, and semi-final win over Cork.“Look, it’s a killer, we got no momentum,” added Donoghue. “For the first quarter, I thought we were okay. But I think again we were forcing it a bit, just not playing our game as much.“But we will reflect back in time, and probably look at the year as a whole in some positive light. It was really important for the younger lads to experience big games like the Leinster final and All-Ireland semi-final and ultimately today. It’s going to be difficult, but they’ll still take a lot of learnings from it.”On the late red card for Ronan Glennan, Donoghue said “there were no complaints from our side, but it’s hard on a young fella on the biggest day,” before finishing with more words of high praise for Limerick.“Full credit to them, they’re just so good at that, giving you the traps and the set-ups that they have, and particularly down the middle. And when you turn it over, you’re just absolutely punished.”