Listen: Pat Donnelly – “We had three championship games behind us that’s what got us over the line”.

Limerick U21 hurling manager Pat Donnelly believes that one of the key factors his side’s 2-23 to 2-19 All-Ireland semi-final win over Galway on Saturday was the fact that they had plenty of championship games under their belt.

“We got stronger as the game went on, we have a lot of work done. Galway came in cold but we have a lot of championship games behind us and that’s what got us over the line in the finish”

Even though Galway did come into the game not having played a competitive game, Donnelly says that he was impressed with their performance on the day.

“I was surprised by the standard, they’re very good hurlers. They would have beaten most teams – they gave us an awful shock”

Looking back on the footage of the game, the South Liberties man says that he could take both positives and negatives from his side’s showing.

“The lads working hard when things weren’t going well, that was a huge plus. On the negative side of things we were sloppy for two of the goals, there was a couple of bad mistakes made for each of the games. That’s something we have to work on because you don’t want to give Kilkenny those goal chances”

The focus now turns to Kilkenny in the final, and Donnelly doesn’t think that the Cats win over Derry will stand to them, while he believes that his side will be out for retribution following their minor All-Ireland final loss in 2014.

“It won’t do them any good coming into the final but the final will be a new game. Going back three years to the minors it’s great that the lads will have a chance to atone for the defeat”

You can listen to Pat Donnelly’s full reaction to the semi-final win below, he also talks more about the final and touches on the future of the Limerick senior hurlers.