AS JOHN KIELY made his way off the Semple Stadium turf and headed towards the dressing rooms, he gave one last jump and fist pump towards the Limerick supporters who were peering down over the tunnel.
Shortly after the final whistle, he was engulfed by the Limerick backroom team, before sharing an emotional embrace with his mother Breda on the field.
Kiely’s post-game euphoria gave an indication of the adrenaline that was coursing through his veins, but by the time he spoke with the media he had the game face back on.
“It’s a moment to savour but there’s no medal or title given out at the end of it, it’s just another step in our evolution as a team,” Kiely stated.
“I’m not surprised we took it, I was fully confident in our management today and that we’d have a performance. I was confident that those players have what it takes to keep their composure in matches where it comes down to the wire like that.
“History has no bearing on this group of players, they would never be defined by it, they’re going to set their own tone, their own direction and that’s that.”
With an All-Ireland semi-final with Cork in two weeks’ time, Limerick are facing a short turnaround but the significance of this victory shouldn’t be underplayed.
Beating Kilkenny is an important step in the evolution of any hurling with ambitions of winning an All-Ireland. Waterford confirmed their status as genuine contenders last summer with a qualifier victory over the Cats and they went on to reach the final.
Limerick will be hoping to receive a similar bounce effect from this win over the side that once dominated the hurling landscape and Kiely expressed his delight at their resolve in resisting a late comeback.
“I am absolutely happy, happy with the team’s performance. First and foremost, the character and steel and resolve our team showed, the composure they showed, the never say die spirit they showed in the face of ferocious adversity that fantastic Kilkenny brought to the game as well. In the last 20, 25 minutes they hit us with everything.
“They got good scores, they got that goal, but really after that was the winning of the match. We responded with three quick points and that kind of leadership is huge, for fellas to do that. We spoke about the need to do that during the week and that’s exactly what we did.”
Kiely stopped short of saying it was a defining moment for his group of players, but he did pay tribute to their character.
“I don’t think so, no. It just qualifies us to go another step along the road. You could look at any number of key moments this year – our performance above in Galway in the last fifteen minutes, our performance against Tipperary, our performance in Cork with fourteen men and our captain gone off – there have been a load of moments one could describe as key moments.
“The most overriding factor is these guys keep demonstrating ferocious qualities like honesty, leadership, and calmness on the ball, working n the ball. Those are the defining attributes of the team, there’s no such thing, for us, as a defining moment for the team
“We’ve created an opportunity for ourselves to go into a final and who will we be playing, Munster champions Cork, who have been exemplary all year, who put Clare to the sword, they drew with us in their third game in the round robin series, when most would have said they’d fall away.
“They didn’t. They nearly got the defining score that day, which would have meant we wouldn’t qualify out of Munster at all, only Sean Finn got a block on the ball.
“There have been lots of moments but they haven’t been defining moments for the team, the team is defined by itself, its own attributes, its own characteristics.”
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