John Kiely pleased to have Peter Casey back, targets continuous improvement 

John Kiely, Limerick manager, signs autograph for fans after the game. Picture: James Lawlor/Inpho

Peter Casey back in green was a sight to behold for John Kiely. It’s a sight he had his doubts over in April of last year when Casey left the Gaelic Grounds with a broken ankle.

The corner-forward made his first appearance in green since that Munster championship injury when coming off the bench - and pointing - during Limerick’s 12-point pumping of Galway.

“Peter has had a long period of time in recovery from his injury last year and it's been a piece of work to get it right. I must credit the medical team with the work that they've done with him, and the effort he's put in himself to get himself back on the pitch again. Many of us leaving the Gaelic Grounds that day never thought we'd see him in a green jersey again and it's great to see him back,” Kiely remarked.

“But I think he'd be the first to put his hand up and say, listen, I need plenty of games to get up to the match pace of it and get the sharpness going.” 

Providing injury updates on the still absent Declan Hannon and Darragh O’Donovan, the Limerick manager said the former is nursing a small niggle in his calf, while midfielder O’Donovan is back on the pitch doing a small bit.

“Darragh is in good shape, so it won't take a whole lot of time once we do get him fully fit and reintegrated into all of the sessions. But we won't play any of these guys unless they're 100 percent and they know that. So they're working hard, just like everybody really.” 

Following last week’s defeat at home to Clare, Kiely was keen to see a response.

“Last weekend was definitely off for us. We weren't just right on it. We'd have been disappointed with our performance, but this week has been an improvement.

“Next week we'll be looking to see if we can try and improve on tonight. We can't allow the opposition to get as many shots off as we allowed Galway to get off tonight because they won't be missing them. Galway will be disappointed with their accuracy off the shots they had.

“We're not codding ourselves to know that if they had gotten those shots right the game would have been much, much closer.” 

The Treaty boss refused to be drawn on Conor Cooney’s first half challenge on Mike Casey that resulted in the latter departing the field and not returning. Cooney somehow escaped with a yellow.

“I haven't seen it back so I can't say,” he replied.

“Listen, Mike is OK. He was a bit groggy coming off. That's just the way it was. He saw it for what it was. We move on. Hopefully he'll recover quickly, and we'll get him back on the pitch as soon as possible. But listen, he's doing OK and he's in good spirits.” 

The 12-point gap pointed to the gulf in every basic metric; pace, physicality, appetite, application, and decision-making. 

Galway manager Micheál Donoghue showed no concern over the gap and gulf under each heading. He knows how far down the road Limerick are and he knows how far past the start line his crew are.

“They’re an experienced team. We’re only starting the journey. We’re very aware of where we are and where we want to go,” said the Galway manager.

“I’d give huge credit to our lads in the second half, even when we were down to 14, they stayed at it and stayed plugging away.

“Obviously, you know down here it’s going to be a tough game, they’re one of the standard-bearer teams in the country. They’ve a lot of experience, a lot of success, and a lot of confidence comes from that. You can see that in their play, the familiarity they have in it.

“I think we created a lot of chances. We’d something up on 20-odd wides, so we were creating opportunities, we just didn’t take them.

"Lads were trying to do the right thing, just dropped a lot of ball and no better team when they get turnovers to punish you. The way we’re looking at it is it’s a massive learning experience and we’ll push on again in two weeks’ time.”