Five talking points as Limerick set up winner-take-all league clash with Galway

LIMERICK ended Cork's unbeaten start to the Allianz National Hurling League with an impressive display resulting in an eight-point win for John Kiely's men.

With the Rebels welcoming Offaly to Supervalu Pairc Ui Chaoimh in round 7, Ben O'Connor's side will be expected to make the league final despite this defeat.

That would make the Limerick-Galway clash at the TUS Gaelic Grounds on March 21 a straight shootout for a place in the decider.

Here are some of the talking points and storylines emerging from Saturday's win on the Ennis Road.

Aidan O'Connor's form continues

While Cian Lynch was given man of the match by TG4, Aidan O'Connor impressed once again. A goal from a penalty put the Ballybrown man on 2-50 for the Allianz League to date.

"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 manager John Kiely after the win over Cork.

"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."

Positive news on the injury front

After going off in the first half in Tullamore, it was hard not to fear the worst for Darragh O'Donovan. It was confirmed after that game that the Doon man injured an AC joint in his shoulder.

Both O'Donovan and Peter Casey are on the mend, Kiely confirmed.

“Darragh got a nice bang on it, an AC joint, but he has put in a tremendous amount of effort this week in terms of his rehab, he's made a huge amount of personal sacrifices to try and get himself right, and more credit to him for that.

“He's after making an incredible amount of progress in a very short space of time, and we'd hope to see him back on the training pitch in a couple of weeks.

“Peter in a good place too, he'll be back training next week,” he added.

Quaid makes history

Nickie Quaid made history on Saturday night as he broke the appearance record for the Limerick senior hurlers.

Remarkably, the record was held by his late father Tommy.

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"It's an absolutely wonderful achievement, nobody deserves it more than Nickie," said the Limerick manager. "It's an incredible honour for him to have. I know he'll spend about two seconds thinking about it because that's the way Nickie is, you know. But, you know, for something down the road for him to maybe look back on, I think it's a lovely piece for him to have. He's earned it, I can tell you that he has earned it."

Where's the black card?

There was great surprise in the stands and terrace as Ciaran Joyce received a yellow card after wrapping his arms around Kyle Hayes and pulling the Limerick wing back to the ground.

It added to the black card controversies seen throughout the National League to date.

While John Kiely didn't comment on the decision from referee Sean Stack, the Galbally man felt Aaron Gillane could have been awarded more than the one penalty he did get from the Dublin official.

Winner-take-all at the TUS Gaelic Grounds

After almost 19,000 attended the Ennis Road venue for this game, Limerick are at home again next time out. When Galway come to town, the winner will almost certainly reach the league final.

The Tribesmen will come to town on a high - they had an emphatic 0-35 to 0-17 win over Kilkenny last Saturday.

"I think it's great for both teams that we can look forward to that challenge now, and it'll be a great game here in two weeks' time," said Kiely.

"We look forward to it, it will be a great challenge, and I've been watching them right throughout the league, they've been playing exceptionally well, working extremely hard, a lot of really exciting, good young players coming through there, so we know there's going to be a right challenge ahead of us for two weeks' time, so we look forward to that."