*John Kiely. Photograph: Gerard O’Neill
FACING Clare in this year’s Munster SHC final is of “no surprise” to Limerick manager, John Kiely.
That said, the principal of Abbey CBS secondary school in Tipperary was quick to point out that there was a level of unhappiness within their camp on their showing against Clare when the sides drew on May 15th.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s Munster Final, the counties first clash at this stage since the 1995 decider, Kiely remarked, “We’re just focused on the next game and the fact that it is Clare doesn’t make any difference to us as such. We are just focused on ourselves because we weren’t altogether happy with our own performance the last day”.
Kiely revealed that they are going to target Eibhear Quilligan’s puckout in Semple Stadium. “We felt that we didn’t hit a level of performance that we would have set out to put in – in many respects in terms of our scoring was low, our work-rate wasn’t as high as we would have liked it to be. It was good, very good but we know there is still room for improvement there, and particularly on the Clare puckout – we were weak on that and that is something that we will have to go after.
“Of course you’re going to learn from the previous games – you are always going to spot pieces of patterns to plays, patterns to set pieces and you got to learn from those and share that learning with the group and discuss it and decide how you are going to deal with it. Are there major structural changes required? No. But there are particular points of emphasis. They have class players all over pitch and they are working really really hard and put in huge shifts out on the pitch. Any team that is doing that gives themselves a chance and they have quality forwards who can take scores,” he added.
Very few pundits gave Clare a chance of emerging past the province but the Limerick boss said he was “not in the slightest bit surprised” to be facing Brian Lohan’s side in the decider. “We’ve full respect for them as a side who have put themselves in this position where they topped the group. They have been the best team in Munster to-date this year and that is just the facts of the matter. The challenge is there for us to go and take them on and see if we can find a better performance and see if we can challenge them more”.
He continued, “In the round robin you are going to have dips, you will have challenges brought to you, you will lose certain players, you can’t look at it in the same light as last year’s championship because it is a different championship. I would hope that we can bring what we had in the round robin series in terms of performance and continue our trajectory in terms of performance levels upwards towards the Munster final. That’s the challenge and goal now: to produce a performance that is even better than the last four performances – that is well within their capacity but you have to go after it and really focus, and as a group we are are very focused on our work in order to produce that type of performance”.
Another alteration between this year and the last two seasons is the quick turnover between games. “Last year we had two weeks between each game so you had time to do your analysis and balance the load over two weeks, whereas in a six- or seven-day turnaround, as we were this year with both our pairings, you have to get everything done really quickly. Our analysis team under Seanie O’Donnell had a busy time trying to turn over the game. Even having to name your team on Wednesday for the match on Sunday, you’re almost naming it in the dark because you could have some players who had been unable to train on Tuesday but you are hoping they will be able to train on Friday to be ok for the game on Sunday”.
