WATCH: Kiely Happy With Break Ahead Of Semi Final “We Needed A Bit Of Time For The Bodies To Heal”

Limerick manager John Kiely feels that the four week break from the Munster Final win to the All-Ireland semi-final is a good thing for his side.

The Treaty go into the last four tie with Galway on the back of a break and Kiely says that it was exactly what the group needed after a hectic Munster schedule.

We were obviously delighted to come through and win a Munster title in the first place. To be honest with you, it was exactly what we needed as a group right now.

Maybe four years ago if you said that we were going to get a four week break it would be a different scenario. Whereas now, this turn around is exactly what we have needed. After a really long, tough game against Clare, we needed a bit of time for the bodies to heal.

Now, we are well into our preparations and ready to go into our preparations for the semi-final. We were able to go away last weekend on camp and work really, really hard. Our sessions have gone extremely well.

As you know, our injury list is very tidy now as well, which means the quality of our sessions have been the best probably all season. Our lads are mentally fresh, physically fresh and we have a very competitive group at the moment which is driving the sessions as well.

Everybody is fighting for a place to on the 26 and on the 15. With the lads coming back from injury that only increases that degree of competitiveness in the group so that’s only a healthy thing to have.

The last time Limerick had such a long lead into a semi-final was back in 2019 where they lost out to Kilkenny by a solitary point.

When quizzed on whether there were any similarities between now and then, Kiely was clear and to the point with his response.

Totally different scenarios. We have a different group now, older group, more mature group and we have more experience ourselves as coaches.

I think we have managed it really well. We put a lovely schedule in place. Everybody within the group is very happy and I think that’s half the battle.

That everybody is happy with the schedule, with the work that is being put in front of them and that they feel that they have enough time for recovery, enough time for work and obviously with the competitiveness of our group, the lack of game time isn’t an issue because we have as much game time in house that we would outside.

It’s under a more controlled environment where we can play as much of it or as little as we want.