LISTEN: John Kiely on Limerick’s loss to Clare and the next challenge

John Kiely emerged from the Limerick dressing room yesterday resigned to the fact that Clare were the better team on the day but defiant that this Limerick side can still have a say in this championship.

A side that failed to score in the last 15 minutes of the game was indicative of a group of players who had run out of steam and having to put that work in with fourteen players was also a telling factor. Despite not seeing energy as a factor in the build up, Kiely acknowledged that three games in 14 days was a tall order.

“I think playing that level of a sport so intensely over a short period of time you really would need to be professional. That is the bottom line. I think next year they’re going to put in a gap weekend for everybody. I’m not using it as an excuse.

“I don’t want it to be an excuse, it’s not. The bottom line is Clare were better than us, they had energy all over the pitch and they were so efficient in the second half playing against the breeze. It probably suited their style, but we just failed to grab any momentum in that second half. It’s a setback, but I’m sure it’s one we can absorb and can bounce back from.”

Munster GAA Senior Hurling Championship Round 5, Cusack Park, Clare’s David McInerney and Seamus Flanagan of Limerick
Mandatory Credit ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Kiely felt his side had a good opening half and trailing by only four points at the break were well in the game. Despite trailing by just four, one got the sense that Limerick were just not firing on all cylinders. The touch that was so sharp and evident against Waterford the previous week, was not at the same level, the shooting not of the same accuracy and the movement not of the same standard.

“We came in four points down at half-time, which wasn’t an insurmountable lead. I was quite happy with where we were at half-time and we got a reasonably good start to the second half, but I think you saw very quickly the team running out of energy. That was the biggest problem in the second half.

“All credit to Clare, they found energy in that key spell in the final 20 or 25 minutes and they worked the ball really well through the lines and they pushed on and won the game on merit. They deserve their place in the Munster final.

Despite the disappointment of yesterday’s game in Ennis, Kiely will take learnings from the loss to Clare but will not underestimate their next challenge.

“For us, it’s onto the winners of the Joe McDonagh Cup and a prize at stake that’s huge, a place in the quarter-final. The challenge of facing Carlow or Westmeath in 20 days’ will not be taken lightly.”

“We’ll prepare the same as we have for every other game. We’ll do the exact same review as we would for every other game and take it with the same amount of seriousness as we have for all our games. I’ll reference our game against Antrim in the league. We didn’t do anything different for that, we got our performance right and we’ll be taking it extremely seriously, I can assure you of that, because the prize is too massive.”

Listen to the interview in full on the link below.