In an interview that touched on the attitude of Leitrim supporters and clubs, the performance of the referee, absent players and the standard of opponents Clare, John concluded with "I am ultra, ultra proud of the Leitrim boys today, I'm gutted for them because it is a horrible, horrible result and they were ten points better than Clare."

His opening remarks were no less forthright and weren't exactly brimming with respect for Clare – "I feel gutted for the boys but I have never felt as proud. I just want to go home because I am disgusted, not with the boys but with the result.

"I've never seen as many of them play as well and having watched the antics of the Clare management, thinking they've got a team, they haven't even got a f***ing team that can play together, they've no structure.

"They've got goals that shouldn't have happened, they were beat out of sight off the field the whole day. At the end of the day, on everything but the scoreboard, we have beaten them out of sight. Apart from the two goals that shouldn't have happened, we were eight to ten points better than that team.

"I won't, and you can quote that, I won't down the Leitrim players today. They were excellent, to put 17 points on the board. I'll take nothing but positives from today. It is seven hours for me to get home and that is a lot of sitting, frustrated, knowing that we lost today."

The Armagh man was also unhappy with the standard of referees in Division Four – "There were some weird decisions there today, the referee pulled out of one there at the end. The referees are not good.

"If you tell me we have a Division Four referee who is not allowed referee a Division One match, then that is not an official referee for me. He is just some person thrown in to try him out."

Morrison also returned to a personal bug-bear – the attitude of Leitrim people to the Senior team and John admitted that he didn't mean his apology of last year when he criticised the attitude of the County's supporters.

"I've said this before and I had to apologise before and I didn't really mean that apology. I was asked to apologise because until Leitrim starts believing in their players, I told them today that these boys are trying to please a father who doesn't value them, who thinks they're s**t and spends his whole life trying to please.

"We've told them that and that's what we've been at this last fortnight and they've started to do things themselves.

"Even yourself, and that is not a criticism of you, I used your paper. You know in your heart that sending them down to Ennis, Leitrim never do well. Nobody in Leitrim expected them to win so they are never going to win.

"People didn't give us a chance of promotion.