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Hurling

'They dug in and refused to be beaten' | Kiely on Limerick side as they advance to All-Ireland final

For the first time ever Limerick and Waterford will contest the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champi...



'They dug in and refused to be...
Hurling

'They dug in and refused to be beaten' | Kiely on Limerick side as they advance to All-Ireland final

For the first time ever Limerick and Waterford will contest the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship final in two weeks' time.

That's after Limerick beat Galway on a scoreline of 0-27 to 0-24 in their last four clash at Croke Park on Sunday.

The game was far from a classic and it wasn't the best we've seen of Limerick even this year.

It took them 9 minutes to register their first point, however, once they took the lead in the 24th minute it never really looked like Galway were going to defeat the 2018 champions.

Despite perhaps not being their brilliant best, Limerick manager John Kiely was pleased for the most part with his side at full time when he spoke to OTB Sports,

"We mightn't have gotten off to a very fluid start, we still created a few chances but we made a few handling errors, we were just a bit nervy maybe.

"Once we settled into it then midway through the first half we got into a good rhythm and clawed back that lead that Galway had.

"It was nip and tuck for long periods of the game but I'm very satisfied with the performance.

"When things aren't coming as easily as you'd like them to sometimes that can be the day that you back off it and you accept that it's not happening for you on the day and you're finding it too difficult.

"The boys embraced that challenge, embraced that difficulty and tried to figure out the solutions to the problems and just kept fighting and fighting and the boys coming off the bench made a huge impact in the last 15-20 minutes."

Limerick went into the first half water break trailing Galway 0-7 to 0-4 however they were shifting into gear at this stage.

Kiely was happy the break didn't stop them from finding their feet in the game and was also pleased with how his side picked up after half time.

"Coming into that water break we were beginning to find that bit more rhythm, we probably would prefer to have kept going, we were getting into it at that stage and finding our range.

"At half-time we were looking to build again on what had happened in the last 15-20 minutes of the first half, trying to get back into that rhythm again, try and raise the intensity levels if we could.

"The boys worked extremely hard, and they were made work very, very hard for every single ball they got.

"Galway were very firm in the tackle, they didn't allow us to break the tackle too often.

"Our boys showed great resilience overall on a night when things weren't going completely according to plan they dug in and refused to be beaten."

Limerick now have an All-Ireland final appearance to look forward to in a fortnight where they'll face Waterford.

It's the first time since 2013 that the final will be an all Munster affair.

Kiely isn't getting carried away though with talk of the occasion and says they can only focus on themselves.

"It's all about our own performance it's not about the opposition at all.

"That was a very good performance this evening but not all of it and there are areas that we need to tighten up on and improve on.

"We gave away a lot of frees tonight and we need to tighten up on that. If you could make the pitch bigger we mightn't give away so many sidelines but it was a good performance and we'll go away on build on it now for two weeks.

"We've a huge, huge challenge ahead of us. We saw the performance of Waterford last night, it was just incredible.

"It's going to take a massive, massive effort on our part to match that."

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All-Ireland Hurling Championship Final John Kiely Limerick