Limerick set for Munster senior hurling championship final date with Cork

LIMERICK senior hurling manager John Kiely said his side are looking forward to a home Munster senior hurling final clash with Cork.The Munster senior hurling championship final will take place in the TUS Gaelic Grounds on Saturday, June 7 at 6pm.

Limerick, who suffered defeat to Clare in their final round robin fixture of the Munster championship at the TUS Gaelic Grounds yesterday, are bidding to win the provincial title for an historic seventh year in a row.

“We are really looking forward to it (Munster final). These are special occasions to be part of. You want to be at your best and for us the next two weeks is about preparing in the very best way we possibly can, to be the best team we can be on the night,” said Limerick senior hurling manager John Kiely after his side's defeat to Clare.

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Kiely feels the Shannonsiders and Cork have discovered a real rivalry over the last number of years.

“The last day was a glimpse of what may be coming down the road. The Cork team and our team have a great rivalry and that's been evident for a number of years now. We've played some fantastic games against each other, we've great respect for each other but this is a Munster final. It's on in Limerick, we will be giving it every single thing we have.”

Declan Hannon, Darragh O'Donovan, Peter Casey and Seamus Flanagan all made their first starts of the Munster SHC in Limerick's 3-20 to 0-24 defeat to Clare yesterday. Kiely said it was important to give some of these players gametime.

“It's always disruptive to make changes, ultimately these guys have been playing with each other for years. These guys hadn't maybe played enough of games before (Sunday) maybe hadn't enough game sharpness. Some of changes were enforced because we had guys with knocks from last weekend. Three guys that couldn't tog out today in the first place.

“Then you're trying to prepare for the season ahead in terms of we are out of Munster now, we have a Munster final and we need to start preparing our panel for that as well.You can't keep relying on the same guys all the time. We have great trust and great faith in our panel and in our players anyways,” added Kiely.

Limerick have now finished top of the Munster SHC round-robin series, while Cork have finished second and Tipperary have finished in third place.

A victory over Cork will put Limerick into the All-Ireland SHC semi-final, while a defeat will mean Kiely's side will join the All-Ireland series at the quarter-final stage. The All-Ireland quarter-finals take place on June 21/22, while the All-Ireland semi-finals take place on July 5/6 in Croke Park. 

Kiely believes his side struggled to get to the energy levels they got to against Cork in round three.

“The real piece for us on (Sunday) was our energy levels were just bit low at times and our accuracy was low.

“We had the game I thought with maybe with ten to go, it was there for us to go after, couple of mistakes in that period really probably cost us the result at the end of the day.”