Kiely chuffed with O'Connor and O'Donovan injury progess; O'Connor delight with performance

Both managers took plenty from an energetic tussle at TUS Gaelic Grounds.

Cork manager Ben O'Connor, centre, shakes hands with Limerick manager John Kiely after the Allianz Hurling League Division 1A match between Limerick and Cork at TUS Gaelic Grounds in Limerick. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

As impressive as the green collective again was, we’re going to begin the post-match musings with focus on the individual.

In Limerick’s three-in-a-row of League wins, Aidan O’Connor has top-scored each time. Each time his contribution has grown incrementally. 0-10, 0-11, and 1-11 here against Cork.

He’s assuredly dealt with the transfer of dead-ball responsibilities onto his in-tray. And yet he’s also made sure not to be defined by his dead-ball responsibilities. Four from play against Cork brings his total in this department to 0-14 for the League to date.

Kiely praised a centre-forward who was patient and persevered and is now pouncing on the opportunity afforded to him.

“In sport, it takes a long time to build confidence, and he's worked so hard over the last number of years to put himself into the frame to get on the pitch, and now that he's taken this opportunity, which he has when we gave him the frees a number of weeks ago, you couldn't budge him off them,” said the Treaty boss of the in-form No.11.

Brian Hayes of Cork poses for a selfie after the game. Pic: ©INPHO/James Lawlor

“His accuracy has been unerring, his energy on them, and he's just in a very comfortable place. His confidence is high, and more luck to him.

“He's got to keep driving it on. He knows there's a man behind him waiting to pick them up if he drops them for a couple of seconds, so that's a great piece for us to have.” 

To the collective. Kiely declared himself really content with the trajectory of their spring graph.

“We've been working hard the last number of weeks and it's about bringing what we're doing in training to matches when they matter. Again, just trying to build from week to week. I'd be very happy with our progression through the last four games in particular, in terms of the improvements that we're seeing, incremental improvements.

“We obviously have to try and push on in the competition as well. That's the other side of it, so getting the two points is vital tonight. We were a bit slow out of the blocks, the first 15-20 minutes, we were creating chances but we weren't executing them, so our shooting was a bit off in the first half, and our efficiency was down.

“They were far more efficient with what they were getting in terms of shots, but overall, we had I think 17 shots to 13 in the first half, so we were creating the chances but just not taking them. That was something we needed to address.

“It was much, much better in the second half. Our efficiency was much, much higher in the second half. That was another positive to take from the game. I think we adapted better in the middle of the first half as well to the challenge that was being brought to us by Cork, and once we got to target that particular aspect of the game, I think we started to come into the game. Our use of the ball from there then was quite good.” 

The update provided by the Limerick manager regarding Darragh O’Donovan’s shoulder injury is that the midfielder has made an “incredible amount of progress in a very short space of time” and should be back on the training field in a couple of weeks' time.

Peter Casey, absent here, will return to training next week, as should the also missing Dan Morrissey and Matthew Fitzgerald.

Cork manager Ben O’Connor’s summation was disappointment with the result, delight with the performance of a team that contained just six starters from last year’s All-Ireland final.

“We found it hard to get a foothold, Limerick took over in the middle third and it took us a while to get to grips with. But when we did, our fellas battled back.

“We'll learn a lot from it. Disappointed we didn't get goal chances. They'll come another day. A learning experience for a lot of our fellas that wouldn't have had that kind of a game under their belt. I think we learned enough of them tonight to see that we have plenty of fellas good enough to play at this level,” said Ben.

“We asked them to empty themselves and they did. There’s no fella out there that didn’t give it 100%. Limerick were better than us and they beat us but that’s not because we didn’t perform. I was delighted with the performance.”

Damien Cahalane of Cork and Barry Nash of Limerick in action. Pic: ©INPHO/James Lawlor

The end of Cork's winning League start has done nothing to lengthen Cork's road to another League final appearance.

“It’s in our hands, if we beat Offaly at home in a couple of weeks time we’ll be in the league final. If we were told at the start of the year that we’d have only have been beaten in one game and only have to win one more game to get into a league final, we’d have taken that.”