John Kiely: Limerick "will take a day or two to reflect" on Peter Casey red card

LIMERICK hurling manager John Kiely is expecting to be without corner forward Peter Casey for the All-Ireland SHC final.

The Na Piarsaigh corner forward was shown a straight red card in the 59th minute of this Saturday's 11-point semi final win over Waterford.

Afterwards Kiely told media that his side would "reflect" before any decision on a potential appeal.

"I haven't seen the footage and seemingly it's scarce enough," he said. 

"I do know from talking to Peter that there was a clash of heads, yes. But nothing malicious or anything of any significance but at the same time you have to be very very careful and especially when you are in that position."

He added: "For us, at the minute we will take a day or two to reflect and see what the picture looks like and take it from there. At the minute we can probably take it that he won't be with us."

Limerick had injuries to both Barry Nash and Diarmaid Byrnes in the second half but it's too soon for any definite news according to Kiely.

"We will have to assess those injuries in the coming days but I would be hopeful everyone will be available for the next day."

After leading Limerick back into another All-Ireland SHC final, Kiely was a content manager but still saw room for improvement.

"We worked hard and I still think there is a little bit more in us in that regard. Hopefully the game today will help us to be able to give ourselves a platform to go up another notch in our work-rate," he stressed.

"In terms of our efficiency and use of the ball, I was very very pleased."

Overall, Kiely was happy.

"When you set out to achieve something and you do it in terms of how you want to play the game. From the get go, we had a good shape and structure to what we were about and it took us a while because the scoreboard was slow to get off the mark for both sides today. I think after 12-minutes it was 0-4 to 0-3 so it was slow to get going for the scores but at the same time we were creating chances and using the ball well with a good structure and we felt secure at the back," he outlined.

Limerick were 0-4 to 0-3 up at the first half water break before racing into a 0-15 to 0-7 half time lead.

"We just reiterated that we were doing everything fine and we hadn't any major concerns at that stage - just to keep doing what we were doing. We felt just before that water break that we were beginning to get an upper hand in certain areas but we just hadn't converted into scores so we just needed to go after that and be patient - that was really the main message, just be patient."