James Ryan backs Limerick manager’s critical appraisal

Limerick’s returning star James Ryan has backed manager John Kiely’s scathing assessment of Sunday’s 21-point hammering by Cork.

Ryan, who made his seasonal bow as a half-time substitute, admitted that a big defeat, in which Cork scored seven goals, should serve as a real “eye-opener” for the Shannonsiders.

Ryan, man-of-the-match in the 2013 Munster final victory over Cork, said: “I can speak for the whole panel here – we weren’t happy with the result, we weren’t happy with our performance. But look, it is January, fellas are getting chances and the week before, Waterford had a trial team out and the Limerick team we had out beat them. We had a team (on Sunday) that didn’t know each other very well, a new, young team. Take Tom Condon and Barry Hennessy out of it and it was a very young team, an U23 team at a guess. There’s a lack of fellas knowing lads around them and there’s a lot to learn. They say that you can learn more from losing than winning but it’s a serious eye-opener.”

Ryan is demanding a much-improved performance from Limerick against Clare, to gain confidence ahead of Sunday’s home clash with Kerry.

He added: “Hopefully we’re going to be in a different mindset on Wednesday night and get a result, even a performance. Teams are trying out different panels and players. But get a result on Wednesday night and the whole thing might turn. We have Kerry at the weekend and we can forget about Cork as quickly as we can, learn from it and leave it behind us. Cork had a good few experienced players out there, with the class of Patrick Horgan and Alan Cadogan working well off each other. I can only speak for myself personally. I played the second half, and we’re all pondering and having a good look at ourselves individually before we look at it as a team.”