All you need to know ahead of Limerick's clash with Cork in Munster Senior Hurling League

THE LIMERICK senior hurlers return to action this Wednesday evening (January 7) against great rivals Cork in the Co-Op Superstores Munster Senior Hurling League.

The action gets underway at 7:35pm in the TUS Gaelic Grounds and the game will be shown live on TG4.

An experimental Limerick side suffered a 3-20 to 3-18 defeat to Clare in their opening round fixture in Tulla on Saturday afternoon.

The Shannonsiders will be aiming for a win to keep their hopes alive of reaching the Munster Senior Hurling League final. Limerick are set to be without a number of players on Wednesday evening, with 13 players involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup action for their colleges.

“We've 13 players involved in the Fitzgibbon Cup, we've eight with UL. There's a new declaration, a system in place for the third level colleges and my only issue is that some of the guys may not actually be involved with the third level team. And they could easily come with us and give us a hand out on Wednesday numbers wise because we are going to be very tight,” said John Kiely.

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“I'm sure Cork are going to in a similar situation, they've got MTU and UCC playing on Thursday night, they won't have access to any of those lads either. Of course, we want to look after the players who are playing third level but a little bit of flexibility would be helpful.”

Kiely said he has little option but to hand game time to some of the more experienced players on Wednesday evening.

“We'll have no choice, we have a lot of players tied up. We've few players with injuries, few lads with knocks so we will just basically be trying to put out a panel on Wednesday. That's just the way it is, we'll see how things go.

“They've worked hard before Christmas, we got four or five weeks of work done before Christmas. We'll keep our head down for the next month and drive it on from there,” added Kiely.

Wednesday will be the first time the Cork senior hurlers take the field in competitive action this year. Ben O'Connor has replaced Pat Ryan as manager of the Rebels for the 2026 season.

William Biggane, who led Castletown-Ballyagran to the Limerick Junior A Hurling Championship in 2025, is part of the Cork senior hurling backroom team. UCC narrowly defeated 2025 All-Ireland finalists Cork in the Michael Canon Cup final after Christmas.

Cork senior hurling star Mark Coleman feels his side and Limerick have brought the best out of each other over the last few years.

“It's probably been 50/50, maybe in the last six times we have played, they've won three and we've won three. They bring out the best in us really because they have set the standard so high in the last decade. You have to be at your best against them.”

The Munster senior hurling league final is scheduled for Saturday, January 17 at 3.15pm. Limerick begin their Allianz Hurling League campaign on Sunday, February 1 away to Waterford in Walsh Park at 2pm.