Mauling by Cork just one of those days, says John Kiely

You can probably remember the last Limerick-Cork clash pretty clearly. It was a couple of weeks ago, but what separated it from the other Munster senior hurling league games was the scoreline: Cork had 21 points to spare at the end and found the net seven times in 70 minutes. Unsurprisingly, eyebrows were raised.

But here Limerick are again, in the final of that same competition. When their manager John Kiely says his players reacted well to that defeat, he’s clearly not just massaging their confidence.

“On reflection it was just one of those days where a bunch of young players just all failed to cope with a situation together,” Kiely says now of that Cork game.

“I don’t believe it was a fair reflection of those players’ ability together, but it was what it was. It happened.

“We dealt with it and we moved on, we probably didn’t have a lot of time to think about it because we played Clare the following Wednesday and we got a good reaction from our lads in that game.

“We played reasonably well that night, we came on, we played Kerry last weekend — again, I’d call that a reasonable performance, and now it’s Cork again on Sunday.

“We’ll be able to see if we can improve on the last performance against them, so yeah, we’re progressing along. The league itself starts in a couple of weeks so the weeks are flying by, really.”

Kiely doesn’t excuse himself and his management team either. The players had to pick lessons out of that seven-goal defeat but they weren’t the only ones.

“It was great in one sense that there was a reminder for all of us that you can’t go out if everything is not right.

“Your mindset must be right, your approach must be right — that day we were just caught flat-footed all round, and it could act as a reminder for us to up our game.

“We’ve worked hard since, and in the greater scheme of things, it’s not a big deal.”

He also points to one aspect of that game in the Gaelic Grounds which may not have been fully appreciated — the quality of their opponents’ performance.

“To be honest, that game was more about what Cork did than what we didn’t do. Cork showed that day why they went back and got started early, why they’ve gotten so much work under their belt — and in particular the kind of work they’ve done was evident too that day.

“Against us their touch was great, their movement was great, their ball play with each other and their running off the ball — those were all excellent.

“They did so many things really well on the day, and we didn’t cope with it — but it was really more a case of what they’d done.

“And what we took out of that was that it’s a measure for us, and hopefully Sunday we’ll see if we’ve closed that gap a bit.

“I don’t think it’s going to have any influence next Sunday, what happened the last day out. There are going to be two different teams, a different day, and every game’s different.”

For Kiely and his management team, a competitive game is welcome not just because it prepares players for the national league, now a week away, but it gives a chance to see if the work done in training is bearing fruit in testing conditions.

“Every team is working hard and for us it’s a chance to work on what we’re doing in training — to see if what we’re doing in training is being reflected in our performances on the field. That’s a major part of it.

“As managers we’re all in the same boat, trying to give fellas an opportunity to play, to put their best foot forward and put their hands up for selection.

“We have a lot of players on board at the moment, like every other panel in the country, but we’re coming to a point now where we’ll have to narrow our focus a bit — after the weekend I think that’s what will be done.”

A relatively clean bill of health for his squad should help Kiely select his league squad.

“Sean Finn is almost back in action after his ACL injury. He picked that up last February, playing with UL in the Fitzgibbon Cup but he’s probably only a week or two away from resuming full training. We’re probably just being a bit cautious with him.

“Tom Condon has been out with a rib injury for the last week or two, while John Fitzgibbon picked up an injury against Clare last week.

But they’re nothing major, they’re only missing a week or two — we’re doing well, really, in terms of injuries.”