John Kiely hailed his Limerick team’s character after they withstood a Galway onslaught to reach another All-Ireland final.
The champions will bid for three-in-a-row in the decider on July 17 against Kilkenny - the last team to beat them in Championship hurling in the 2019 semi-final.
But having been pushed to the limit by Clare twice and now Galway in each of their last three games, Kiely rejected any suggestion that he should be worried by how teams seem to be getting closer to his all-conquering side.
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He said: “I’m going to be brutally honest with you, every day we go out the kitchen sink is fired at us and whatever is left over is fired at us as well and we have had to stand up and take whatever has been fired at us all season long and that’s just the way it is and I don’t see it going to change.
“But I know that every day our boys have stood up and withstood everything that was fired at them. They showed great resilience, determination, composure, calmness and an ability to see out the game so I’m worried about nothing.”
However, after getting off to a flying start, Kiely admitted that his side didn’t work quite hard enough.
“When we look back on it during the week our work rate will be just down a notch or two, and it’s something we’ll be disappointed with. We turned over too many balls in the tackle, and that’s our fault.
“The tackle is the opposition’s responsibility, but holding onto the ball is ours when we have it, and we coughed up too many balls in the tackle.”
Despite that, he was satisfied that his players’ unity remained intact.
“The character was incredible but listen we know that, we trust our group. There is an incredible unity and togetherness within our group and that’s never, ever been a doubt, never been a doubt.
“The only thing that I would ever hate to do is lose a game without producing that on the pitch, that unity, togetherness and resilience that we pride ourselves on.
“That would be something I would not like to see happening but, listen, I know these guys everyday they always deliver that.
“We will hit wides, we will misplace passes, we’ll miss a few chances here and there, we’ll concede scores but ultimately at the end of the day we know if we keep at it we’ll give ourselves a chance.”
Similar to the Munster final, Limerick’s bench was key to the result with David Reidy particularly impactful as he hit 0-3 after being introduced in the 61st minute.
“He’s exceptionally consistent in what he does coming off the bench for us, it’s something we value highly in the group.
“There’s a huge amount of acknowledgement and significance given to that in the group, and that’s why fellas are aware of how it important it is to the group as a whole, and why they’re happy to play that part for us. Long may that last.”
And Kiely played down talk of a revenge mission against Kilkenny after the ambush of 2019.
“All we're worried about is the game this day two weeks. The game that you're referring to was three years ago. We can't change the past, by God we can influence the future.
“So yeah, we'll be going after our preparation to make sure that we're the best team we can be in two weeks’ time.”
Indeed, he claimed that he didn’t even take in their demolition of Clare the evening before.
“I didn’t watch it. It was irrelevant to me until we got through today so there was nothing to be gained from watching it. Better off to walk the dog.”
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