WATCH | “We fought really valiantly” | John Kiely praises side after epic Championship win against Waterford

The Limerick hurlers made it two from two in the Munster championship after a nail biting encounter with Waterford

Limerick were able to come from behind after a bright start from Waterford in their second game of the Munster Championship as they held out for a 0-30 to 2-21 win.

Limerick held a narrow lead heading into half time after losing star man Cian Lynch through a knock on his hamstring but the substitutes were more than able to continue the intensity set by the man before them.

Limerick dominated the third quarter but a brace of quickfire goals from the Deise brought them within a point as the clock ticked into the red.

But the Shannonsiders were able to find crucial scores down the stretch to maintain their 100% record.

Reflecting on the game, Limerick manager John Kiely said he is hopeful that Hurler of the Year, Cian Lynch’s injury won’t be too bad after he left the field inside ten minutes with an apparent hamstring injury.

However, with the nature of the injury, Kiely is unsure how long he will be without the Patrickswell man for.

“It was huge challenge we had quite a few conundrums that we had to figure out along the way you know, even the injuries like Cian getting injured you have to reset and go again.

“It’s a hamstring most likely so we will have to wait and see.”

However, into the breaches came Cathal O’Neill who clipped over 0-3 in just his second championship appearance. His fellow substitutes Pat Ryan and David Reidy also made scoring contributions as Limerick made light of the absence of four current All-Stars.

Touching on the impact of the bench, Kiely was delighted with their output with the game in the melting pot.

“We’ve had a significant impact off our bench now for the two games thus far which has just been very very pleasing.

“I think this team is very experienced now and when teams have their purple patch and they make it count like that you know I’d back our guys to keep a cool head,.”

A constant thread throughout the game was refereeing on the hand passing rule which has become a lot stricter this season with both sides penalised for offences.

Kiely said the approach hasn’t been the greatest but is hopeful of rectifying the issue as the year progresses.

“I think maybe they should have approached each team at the beginning of the year and said listen we have identified an issue in the game that we’d like to rectify we’d like your help in it and you know if we’d known about that in the begging of the year that this was going to be a significant issue I think we could have brought that in to our training from the very outset.”

Check out the full interview below