Ryan lauds Treaty composure as switches have desired effect

Limerick manager Brian Ryan was happy that his side hadn’t panicked at any stage of the replay, allowing them to overhaul Waterford without needing to score goals.

A massive effort at each end turned around a two-point deficit eight minutes into the half, with Limerick hitting 0-9 to Waterford’s single point in the final 18 minutes.

“We weren’t too worried at half-time,” he said.

“Our stats were good, we were winning a good percentage of puck-outs and we were creating chances, they just weren’t coming off. It was a case of holding our cool and holding our composure and the thing would come right.

“We gave away six scoring frees in the first-half, but we only gave away one in the second-half, that was critical.”

Key positional switches, particularly those of Tom Morrissey and Colin Ryan, also played their part.

“I think they did,” Ryan said, “they steadied the ship and gave us the platform to drive on, so we were very pleased.

“It took us 10 minutes into the second half to settle but once we did then we were impressive, the changes worked for us.

“We did an awful lot of hurling in Cork that we felt that we didn’t get credit for and I think we showed out there tonight that we’re worthy Munster champions.”

For his part, Waterford manager Derek Lyons believed that his team ran out of gas in the closing stages.

“We had curtailed them for the first-half, we imposed our own game on them,” he said.

“The momentum swung in their favour for the last 20 minutes, they made a few switches which caused us trouble and they finished stronger because we had used up a lot of energy for 40 minutes and that took its toll.”

They now face Dublin on Sunday and, while Waterford won the All-Ireland in the same situation last year, Lyons knows it will tough to repeat that.

“We’ve only five days to plan around it,” he said.

“We have to get them back to reality, but it will be difficult to do prepare. Dublin are as big and physical an outfit as Limerick, if not more so.

“We just have to believe in the troops and do for an hour what we did tonight for 40 minutes.”