AFTER NINE YEARS and 126 games in charge, John Kiely decided the second half of 2025 was time for a root-and-branch review.

He had never before in his term as Limerick manager instigated such a forensic audit, but across six or eight weeks, Kiely met every member of his panel and backroom team individually.

By the end of September, he had conducted 63 one-on-one conversations, each spanning two to three hours. He filled two books with his written notes.

Why not before? Why now?

“The time had come,” Kiely says simply before explaining the benefits.

“It’s amazing what you glean from those conversations. Everybody has their own perspective.

“Everybody’s opinion is important and everybody’s story is important. You learn things about people and maybe they learn a little bit more about you as well in the middle of those conversations. But they have to happen.

“There’s an awful lot of very valuable feedback to be taken. Great honesty and challenging conversations. You either embrace it or you ignore it at your peril.

“We chose to embrace it. It was a starting point for more, deeper conversations that followed later. Ultimately, it asks you the question of are you up for this or not?”

John Kiely gees up the Limerick crowd during the semi-final victory over Clare. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO

Everyone was consulted: the vast majority of players who stayed on the journey and those who wouldn’t be back.

Kiely continues: “You get a sense of the mood of the group and the level of disappointment and hurt that’s there. You get a sense of the measurement of the determination to go forward.

“That’s what you’re really looking for. What is that like? Where is that at? As much as you’re trying to assess where others’ determination is, you’re trying to assess where your own is.

“It was a great process. It was a very valuable process. I think they picked up on that as well and knew that if we’re going to give that much time to this aspect of reflection, only good things could come from it going forward.”

The defeats to Cork and Dublin that ended their previous two campaigns triggered that period of deep introspection.

Kiely credits the reaction to those disappointments as fuelling their second-half resistance this year. Limerick have conceded just 1-1 from play after half-time between their Munster final conquest of Cork and All-Ireland semi-final triumph over Clare.

“There’s a great defiance in the group at the moment,” Kiely begins, when asked to explain that statistic.

“The last two seasons ended in a way that was very difficult to accept. We were all terribly, terribly disappointed.

“There were rational reasons for all of it. We came up against good oppositions. We ran out of gas last year when it came to playing Dublin. We just didn’t have it in the tank. That’s an understandable thing to happen, given you’re on the road for so many years and you’ve had a really tough Munster campaign and a Munster final that went to extra-time and penalties.

“It happens. So what do you do? You either walk away or you double down. Everybody in our group doubled down.

“There’s a great determination and resilience there. It’s exemplified when the games get into that phase where it’s on the line. The boys are embracing those moments when it’s on the line. Their execution, their decision-making, their cohesiveness as a unit on the pitch in those moments has just been top-class.

“They can take great confidence from being through those battles and coming out the right side of them.”

Against Clare, Kiely notes, “our performance levels were on a steady rise. Our weakest quarter was our first and our strongest quarter was our last.” They will hope to keep the foot on the accelerator across Sunday’s decider against Galway.

Limerick manager John Kiely and Diarmaid Byrnes celebrate after beating Clare. Ryan Byrne / INPHO Ryan Byrne / INPHO / INPHO

Renowned sports psychologist Caroline Currid has spent five years with the group and won five All-Irelands. In the years she stepped away – 2019, 2024, and 2025 – Liam MacCarthy proved elusive. Is that coincidence or cause and effect?

“Well, she wasn’t there,” says Kiely. “But if we’re really honest about it, we can’t win every day. And it’s over a long period of time. There are going to be days where you’re just that little bit off. We were those little bits off in 2024. Last year, we just lost our energy. We just got sapped. You have to take it on the chin and move on.”

Kiely’s review would’ve just been completed by the time he was jetting off to the 2025 Ryder Cup.

His work at JP McManus’s Martinstown Stud involves some organisational duties for the 2027 edition at Adare Manor. That meant an all-access pass to witness Team Europe’s Bethpage Black victory.

That was an “absolute privilege”, but it wouldn’t compare to an All-Ireland title on Sunday. And Kiely is well aware that Galway gave his side plenty of trouble in their March league meeting.

“It’s a reference point,” says Kiely. “Five of their front six were playing, so that’s a good place for us to look. But ultimately, they’ve gone on a journey since and we’ve gone on a journey since. The result won’t have any impact.”