John Kiely pictured before a press briefing at the Gaelic Grounds ahead of Limerick's All Ireland SHC semi-final against Cork.
By Cian O'Connell
Nowlan Park, Saturday July 1, 2017 was the date another Championship campaign terminated for the Limerick senior hurlers.
A raft of the panel did busy themselves winning a second All Ireland Under 21 title in three years, but the loss to Kilkenny hurt deeply.
Now 12 months on Limerick face Cork at Croke Park in an intriguing Munster Semi-Final. How quickly did Limerick manager John Kiely's thoughts turn to 2018? "For me personally, I would have taken three or four weeks to switch off for a few weeks," Kiely says.
"Absorb it. You need a bit of time to gather your thoughts and where the improvements need to be made and what can be done better.
"And then we begin a process of consultation with the other members of the management team and the players to see where we can do things better. We did a really good job of that phase last year, thinking about what we can do better.
"We also have to take into account that it is our second season and we should be better. Course we should. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be doing the right thing in the first place. There is an expectation on ourselves to be better in the second season, anyway."
So through the Munster League and Allianz Hurling League Limerick showed signs of real promise claiming promotion before impressing in the Championship. Did Kiely envisage reaching the last four of the competition? "I think every year, we sit down to plan the season, we plan for every eventuality," Kiely responds.
"Even last year, we had plans in place for training, post the match in Nowlan Park against Kilkenny. So we plan to go the whole way every year. You have to have that expectation of yourself and you have to have those plans in place if you are going to be effective in your planning. You have to prepare for all eventualities.
Limerick hurling manager John Kiely.
"So yes, we had planned to go through the next two weeks. We had planned to be in a semi-final. How we got there, what route we were going to be taking, who was to say? You plan for every eventuality and every route. We go out every day believing we can win. Why would we bother if we didn’t think that?"
Cork and Limerick drew at Pairc Ui Chaoimh in the Munster Championship, but Kiely isn't placing any huge significance on that match.
"There won’t be any comparison," Kiely states. "They are different games. Different players playing even that didn’t start in those games. There is a different prize at stake as well. That game was part of the round robin series. Everybody was caught up in that bubble of the round robin series at the time. This is different now.
"Teams have had a little bit of time to progress further. They have played a Munster final since and they won that. And played extremely well in it to win it having come from behind against a really strong Clare team who have now landed in the semi-final as well with Galway.
"Their form has been very very impressive during the course of the summer. They haven’t lost a game yet in the Championship. They are one of the only teams to get a result out of all four games in the round robin series. Justifiably favourites for the game but that’s not to deter us from putting in a good performance and having a cut."
Limerick enjoyed a productive spring topping Division 1B of the Allianz Hurling League to secure top flight status for next year. "Everything was key," Kiely says. "Even having a good Munster League was important to us, get off to a good start at the start of the season. There was a lot of work put in and we went out to win every single game we played this year. That’s the bottom line.
"I think that everyone bought into that desire to be better week to week and go for the win, week on week. It didn’t always work out like that. We lost to Tipperary in the League semi-final after extra-time. And we did want to be in the League final. We didn’t get the result against a pretty strong Tipperary team that evening.
"And we did want to get the win in the fourth round of the round robin and that didn’t work out for us. You put your best foot forward. And if it is good enough, it is good enough. If it is not, it is not."
