LISTEN: John Kiely says Cork’s Championship form “has been very impressive”

Elation filled the county of Limerick after their epic quarter-final victory over Kilkenny as Limerick booked their place in the last four of the All-Ireland Hurling championship for the first time since 2014.

After so many defeats at the hands of the Cats and Brian Cody, John Kiely’s side just had too much resilience and quality for the Leinster side. Led by a talented young core, Limerick never panicked and never looked like losing the game, despite conceding a goal with five minutes remaining.

The side’s mentality is reminiscent of their manager who is certainly focused in his aims. Kiely has instilled an inner belief in his side that his shining through in their performances. Each man is aware of his role and is focused on fulfilling it. No one is looking past the next challenge or getting ahead of themselves which is acknowledged in Kiely’s attitude towards the Kilkenny game.

“Straight after the game on Sunday our attention turned to the next round. Its knockout championship, that’s just the way it is, you keep going and you look to the next challenge.”

As is well documented, Limerick and Cork played out a thriller in Pairc Ui Chaoimh in early June where the sides were deadlocked 0-28 to 1-25 at full time. Kiely isn’t reading much into the result as he feels this Sunday will take a life of its own as both sides have developed throughout the course of the year. He acknowledges the form of the Cork side and is not taking the favourites lightly in the build up to the game.

“That game was part of the round robin series and everyone was caught up in that bubble. This is different now, teams have had time to progress again further. They’ve played a Munster final and won it since and played extremely well in it to win it.”

“Their form has been very impressive all during the course of the summer… so I think justifiably they’re favourites for the game.”

Kiely has also spoke about his sides concentration to the task at hand. When asked about his sides response to Kilkenny’s sucker-punch goal in Thurles, Kiely says he and his backroom staff expected the players to cope with the setback and push on, as they did. Limerick are as united a side as they have been in some time and seem to trust their manager in all that they do. Each moment leads to another and Kiely is hopeful that Limerick will come out on the right side of these moments on Sunday.

“We expected the players to respond to the goal on Sunday and that’s that. Its done its parked. We got the result, we qualified for the semi final and for us that’s part of a catalogue of different moments during the season and we want to create more moments.”

“You put your best foot forward and if it’s good enough on the day you get your result, and if its not, it’s not.”

Listen to the interview in full on the link below.