WITH HIS LIMERICK team within touching distance of All-Ireland four-in-a-row glory, manager John Kiely insists their greatness is already assured.
A dominant second-half showing saw them sweep past Galway to win 2-24 to 1-18 in this evening’s semi-final in Croke Park.
And now on 23 July, Limerick will get the chance to emulate the Cork team of 1941-44 and the Kilkenny class of 2006-09, by lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cup for the fourth successive year.
“I’ve often said it to the lads, they don’t need any further success to demonstrate to them or me or anybody else that they are a great team. They are, and will continue to be, a fantastic bunch of men.
“We’ve very experienced, we’ve enough to worry about to be honest, besides that. When you’re losing the likes of Sean Finn, Declan Hannon, Cian (Lynch) has had injuries – we’ve had a lot to contend with. We’ve had a barrage of really strong challenges coming at us in the Munster championship. We haven’t had time to look very far down the road.”
Kiely admitted he was concerned when his team fell six points behind but hailed the manner in which they gained firm control.
“Obviously you’re going to be concerned at that stage. We were playing second fiddle at that point.
“Galway were setting the terms of the game. They were very strong on their own puckout but they were getting to breaking ball as well.
“I think we hit a few poor wides during that phase as well, but the response of the boys is good. We managed to close in on their puckout a little bit, we managed to get a few more possessions into our players in the middle third.
“Our half-back line became very solid and stopped the ball going in behind them and it was a good platform for us coming into the last 10 minutes and we closed out the first half very strong.
“I think the game was in a pattern at that stage that we didn’t realize it was in, we were in ascendancy and we stayed there for the rest of the game.
Limerick’s success was all the more impressive considering the loss of their influential captain and defensive lynchpin Declan Hannon.
Kiely gave an update on Hannon’s prospects of being fit for the final and explained the decision to announce the Adare man’s absence in advance of the game.
“He has got every chance. We just have to wait and see how he is able to cope with the bit of work during the next week to 10 days. We’ll give him every opportunity to state his claim.”
“Listen, we didn’t want that indecision to be hanging over us. If he was out, we needed to have a real live replacement. So in order to give that player the headspace to really take on that mantle, he was out. It was the right call. Declan wouldn’t have been fit today.
“Give these boys a bit of breathing space by taking away the ambiguity and let the whole country know you are out and that is it, so nobody has to ask that question 5,000 times in the space of four weeks.”
