Horan: If we had ducks they’d have drowned

IT was one of those days managers dread, when everything that can go wrong does. Maurice Horan knows that feeling only too well after Saturday night.

“It sounds ridiculous now but we were quietly confident, even without John Galvin and Stephen Lucey, going into this game. We felt if we got on the front foot that we would cause them problems. But we didn’t,” said Horan.

“We had a terrible start and didn’t settle into the game at all. They didn’t miss any chances but we knew that they would be very efficient with their chances. We were under serious pressure. “We couldn’t plug the hole in the dam at all. It wasn’t even a dam. The dam had come crashing down early, to be honest. Twenty minutes into the game we were really on the back foot. We struggled at midfield, either in the air or to get the breaks.”

Limerick’s bad day at the office was summed up in the first half when substitute Eoin Joy replaced the injured Jim O’Donovan, only for Joy himself to suffer a hamstring injury just minutes after taking to the field.

“If we had ducks today they’d have drowned. That’s how bad it was. Eoin (Joy) could have made an impact and burst into the game but within a minute he goes down with a hamstring injury. That just summed up our evening,” said the Limerick boss.

“We made small inroads towards the end of the first half but they opened us up again at the start of the second half. We needed to come out strong at the start of the second half but they really finished us off. That was it.”

Much was made before the game of the loss of John Galvin and Stephen Lucey for Limerick, and Horan agrees they would have made a difference. “John and Stephen, their presence alone would have steadied the ship. They would have won possession, driven on and brought the forwards into the play. They were huge losses really,” said Horan.

While the qualifiers are now pencilled in to Limerick’s diary, Horan believes that Kerry will be in the mix for All-Ireland honours, judging by what he saw first-hand on Saturday night.

“The hunger is definitely there, said Horan. “Watch out, they are definitely up for it again this year.”