John Kiely: "Tremendous satisfaction in producing that level of performance"

"A great performance," gasped three time All-Ireland winning manager John Kiely as he addressed the media.

It was over an hour after the final whistle as the Limerick manager attempted to put into words his side's 16-point winning display.

"It was a great performance, a performance we were maybe building towards over the last couple of months,” he said.

“We got things right from the start today in terms of our set-up, we got our energy levels right, we started putting a lot of pressure on Cork ball coming out of defence and most of all, when we had the ball ourselves, we used it really, really well and managed to create a lot of space and to be fair to the lads upfront they were running like mad into the space and were retraining the ball. Our accuracy too was very high," he outlined.

"We just got into a flow. And when you get into that state, it is really, really hard to stop.”

It was the performance levels that made Kiely happiest.

“To do that when you need it most, there is tremendous satisfaction in producing that level of performance. It was a huge collective effort, which gives me even greater satisfaction because guys who maybe didn't even feature today, lads who didn’t make the 26 today, lads who didn’t make the starting 15, they put in tremendous efforts and performances in recent weeks, as late as last Tuesday night, and it was there the sharpening of the blade, if you like, that produced that performance today," he outlined.

He was again loud in praise of the collective effort of all his 35-man panel and management team.

“Their contribution needs to be acknowledged by me and the rest of the group because without it you can’t produce levels of performance like that," he stressed.

But he was quick to remember the foundations of the past four years of success were back in 2017.

"It just seems like yesterday we were having two championship matches in 2017 and lost both and were facing into a winter of complete and utter soul searching. We have just managed to turn it around. There is great confidence in the group, there is a great work ethic in the group, there is a great capacity there. They seem to be able to push the boundaries of their performances outwards and upwards on a continual basis. They are very much on an upward trajectory at the moment and we just got to keep pushing the boundaries.”