Late miss is a real killer for Ciaran

‘We only discussed it really afterwards. There would have been a lot of hands going up to take the penalties,’ he said.

‘I felt we would have been in a strong position to do it but it just wasn’t to be. It was a sloppy goal to concede and I’m just heartbroken now for the lot of us because we gave so much.

‘It has been such a magnificent year for us and we came back from Russia and prepared well. We felt we were the better team and got sucker punched then at the end to lose the cup final. Credit to Cork though they battled well. They have improved a lot this year and will be delighted they got a bit of silverware.’

Kilduff insisted though that it was still a good year for the club.

‘We are league champions which was our main objective and then the Europa League is a very good success for us as well. We’ve had a lot of highs this season.

‘We’re delighted with the overall picture but it’s just a bit hard to see it now.’

Now Kilduff feels the only way to bounce back from such a setback is by making it out of Group D in the Europa League.

‘Even if we won we wanted to get out of the group. That becomes the lone objective now.

‘It’ll be a nice break for us for a week or so to get our heads right and get the energy levels back and then we can prepare for what is going to be a huge game against AZ.

‘We have two massive games which are history making games. We’re obviously going to be a bit down after today. It’s a tough one to take and the manner of it as well but hopefully we can bounce back,’ he said.