John Kiely: 'Any Munster final that you play on your home pitch is a fantastic honour'

HOME COMFORTS: Limerick manager John Kiely.

At ease. John Kiely sits back in the Gaelic Grounds and casts his mind forward. On Sunday his side will tog out here in front of over 44,000 for the provincial decider. On their patch.

TUS Gaelic Grounds will host the highly anticipated Clare-Limerick Munster SHC Final. TUS Gaelic Grounds is their home.

“Any Munster final that you play on your home pitch is a fantastic honour and privilege,” the Limerick manager says with conviction. “And it is one that we're looking forward to very, very much.” 

He rests in a room with pictures of Limerick’s triumphant teams all around him. They are perched proudly on the wall. The 1918 and 1921 All-Ireland champions. 1934 and Mick Mackey holding the trophy in 1936. Three images from the modern era: 2018. 2020. 2021. No sign of the most recent outfit just yet.

Outside they are already preparing for training. Shane Dowling is spotted bounding across the car park. 

He once revealed that Kiely brought an ice-cream truck to this ground and after the drills had ended, they’d sit on the field and consume 99s. The group are utterly content here.

Páirc Uí Chaoimh was in line to stage the final until an eleventh-hour intervention from Clare. They didn’t want Cork, why not bring it to Limerick? Brian Lohan’s side had beaten their neighbours at this venue for the first time since 1889 in the second round-robin fixture. Now they want to administer another dose and do it again.

“It was a case of they wanted to play in Thurles, Munster Council wanted it in Cork – we were quite happy to go along with that,” says Kiely. “Then the offer was made by the Clare management team to play it in the Gaelic Grounds and between the two county boards they ironed out an agreement that satisfied both parties.

“Your home ground is your home ground, no matter what. We are very proud of our record here. We are very proud to play here. It means a lot to us. We love training here; we love spending time here and we are certainly going to look forward to playing a Munster final here.” Did that come as a surprise?

“I wouldn’t say surprised. I can see the thought process behind it. That was their decision, that was their request. It is done now and it is a case of the game is what’s important now.” 

This place is tailored to fit. In order to streamline their analysis process with footage, IP Cameras were installed on tripods. These are internal network cameras similar to what is used for CCTV. Injured players stay involved by operating it. Brian O’Grady and Barry Murphy did so last year. This season the sidelined Seán Finn is still at every single session. 

The updates on that front are positive, the defender has already had his ACL operation and there was no other damage to the knee. Otherwise, everyone is available for this weekend.

For some Sunday means a blockbuster encounter and the latest chapter in a burgeoning rivalry. For others, it means an off-the-beaten-track session in Kilmallock. 

After the last two Munster finals, Kiely has taken time to highlight the individuals who did not make the 26 and trained the morning of the match. For Limerick to be fully prepared they matter and it is important to him that they know that.

“Hugely important. We would have reinforced that in the last ten days as well because with all of the games that are coming, the impact of the bench is incredibly important.

“You are always watching in training to see if somebody is going to come from the pack of players who maybe hasn’t been playing and comes to form and is primed to go and do a job for you. Be it ten minutes, 20 minutes or an hour.

“The lads have been doing really well in training the last couple of weeks and we are obviously going to have a very difficult job picking 26 from the 37 but I’d rather have that problem, where the players are pushing hard for places on that 26 and playing exceptionally well.” 

Add it all together and it becomes clear what this team will be for this contest: primed. The path so far has imposed that as much as anything. In 2022 they finished their Munster campaign with a 21-point positive scoring difference. 12 months later it was two. It is their fifth Munster final in a row and Kiely suggests this was the most competitive campaign so far.

There was an issue identified after the Clare defeat: “No matter what way we analyse the game, we were well outworked on the day and that simply won't be good enough on Sunday."

Bit by bit, they’ve built from that base ever since. Time now to demonstrate that in their base.

“I don’t think anybody can deny us the position we are in because of the challenge that was brought by the four teams in all four games. It was a huge performance every day we went out, what we had to take on.

“I think our team showed incredible resilience and strength to take on those challenges and maybe at times when we weren’t playing our best, to still stick to what we were doing. Do it best as we could and trust we would find a way to get out the gap and we did.

“While the games were very close, we could see the incremental improvements that were there for us as a team in our performances. We were honing in on how we can improve again each day. Just become a better team.

“If you look at our performances across the round-robin, we were increasingly better every day we went out. For us, the last two weeks is not about any of the sideshows involved. It is about being a better team next Sunday. Putting in a better performance than we did in the last game. The boys are very focused on that.”